Effectiveness of Brief Interventions in Reducing Substance use among At‐Risk Primary Care Patients in three Community‐Based Clinics

This project identified patients “at risk”; for substance abuse and provided brief interventions (BI) to encourage behavior change. Substance use patterns of patients were determined using the Substance Use Screening Instrument (SUSI). The SUSI was administered to male and female adults, adolescents, and female adults at three community‐based clinics, respectively. “At‐risk”; patients were randomly assigned to intervention or control groups, and a BI was administered to the intervention groups. At each site, the SUSI was readministered to both groups at 1 and 3 months to determine the effectiveness of the BI reducing substance use across time. At two sites, the intervention groups, but not the controls, demonstrated significant reductions in substance use from baseline to 1‐month follow‐up. While there was no additional significant decrease from 1 to 3 months, it was encouraging that the decreased use seen at 1 month was maintained over time without a return to baseline use patterns. The results indicate that brief interventions have a positive impact on substance use behavior. Implications for these results and future directions are discussed.