Curry 2003.

Methods	Parallel group RCT: brief motivational message plus booster telephone calls versus usual care ITT: paper reported multiple imputation to impute outcome data for non‐respondents; unpublished data supplied to the reviewers was based on 222/333 (67%) of those randomised.
Participants	Setting: USA, primary care clinic. Participants: (no age restrictions), presenting for pre‐booked appointment; screened by telephone interviews to select those with AUDIT score <= 15 and consuming ≥ 2 alcoholic drinks per day in past month (chronic drinking), or ≥ 2 episodes of binge drinking (≥ 5 drinks) in past week (binge drinkers), or ≥ 1 episode of driving after ≥ 3 drinks; excluded if alcoholic, pregnant, terminally ill, or cognitively impaired. Number randomised = 333; 65% male; mean age 46.9 years; 16% unemployed; 91% post‐high school education; 68% income > $35,000 per year; 80% Caucasian. Number assessed = 222 (67%). At baseline: mean drinking amount = 166 g/week; 42% chronic drinkers; 33% binge drinkers.
Interventions	Intervention group (N = 166) received: a) a brief motivational message of 1 to 5 minutes from the primary care physician during the planned routine visit; b) self‐help manual; c) written personalised feedback; d) up to three telephone counselling calls over 10 weeks by a psychology graduate. Control group (N = 167) received usual care (no intervention or any information about their participation in the study in their notes).
Outcomes	Drinks per week, drinking days per week, binges per week, grams of alcohol per drinking day, percentage of binge drinkers, percentage of heavy drinkers (average of > 1 drink per day for women or > 2 drinks per day for men. Assessed at 3 and 12 months.
Funding source	This study was supported by National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Grant RO1 AA09175 (to Susan J. Curry, Principal Investigator).
Declaration of interests	Not reported.
Notes	Loss to follow‐up: Intervention group: 66/166 (40%). Control group: 45/167 (27%). Analyses of frequency and intensity of drinking are based on unpublished data on 222 cases Analysis of quality of alcohol consumed/week are based on published means and unpublished SDs.
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Method of sequence generation not reported.
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Method of allocation concealment not described.
Blinding of treatment providers	Low risk	Treatment providers only interacted with intervention participants.
Blinding of participants	Low risk	During recruitment participants were blinded to the focus of the study on alcohol.
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Unclear if outcome assessor was blinded (p. 157).
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Loss to follow‐up reported per arm but not reasons. Uneven follow‐up between arms; used multiple imputation which uses a regression‐type approach that can remove bias that is due to differential non‐response if the imputation model contains variables that are good predictors of the outcome and of non‐response.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	Outcomes specified in methods are reported.