Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To learn from a sample of general practitioners and their patients how they define early at-risk alcohol intake and what they perceive the physician's role in helping patients with early at-risk alcohol intake to be. DESIGN: Survey questionnaire. SETTING: Family practices in Kamloops, BC, and the Department of Family Practice at Vancouver General Hospital. PARTICIPANTS: Thirty-one family physicians and 860 of their patients. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Demographic variables and definitions of alcohol intake, opinions on appropriate interventions for physicians. RESULTS: Patients' median estimate for the limit of early, at-risk drinking for a 75-kg man was two drinks per day an 11 drinks per week; doctors' estimate was 1.5 drinks per day and nine drinks per week. For a 55-kg woman, patients set risk to begin at 1.5 drinks per day and nine drinks per week; doctors set it at 1.2 per day and eight per week. However, patients thought there should be 4.3 alcohol-free days each week and doctors thought 3.5, both answers inconsistent with the daily and weekly limits set. Most (85%) patients and 97% of doctors think doctors should ask about drinking behaviour; yet only 42% of these patients recalled ever being asked how much they drank. CONCLUSIONS: Both physicians and patients have stringent definitions of early at-risk drinking and believe physicians should intervene. Physicians appear to be intervening less often than expected.
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