Alcohol misuse

Alcohol use is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity internationally, and is ranked by the World Health Organization (WHO) as one of the top five risk factors for disease burden.

Without treatment, approximately 16 percent of hazardous or harmful alcohol users will progress to more dependent patterns of alcohol consumption.

This review covers interventions in hazardous or harmful, but not dependent, alcohol users.

Hazardous alcohol consumption is defined as a pattern of alcohol consumption that increases the person's risk of alcohol-related harm, but that is not currently causing alcohol-related harm.

Harmful alcohol consumption is a pattern of consumption likely to have already caused alcohol-related harm.

Single-or multiple-session brief intervention reduces alcohol consumption over one year in hazardous drinkers treated in the primary care setting, but we do not know how it affects mortality.