Nursing interventions for preventing alcohol-related harm

Harrington-Dobinson and Blows recently provided a three-part series of articles on alcohol, its consequences for health and wellbeing, and the role of the nurse. Their third article outlined the health education and health promotion role of the nurse. They outlined basic principles for nursing practice in relation to the patient with alcohol dependence in the acute general hospital. The authors of this article believe that much more can, and must, be said in relation to the vital issue of nurses' clinical interventions for alcohol. This article builds on the third article from Harrington-Dobinson and Blows by outlining, in more concrete terms, how nurses in all settings can effectively intervene with patients. It introduces the current evidence-based guidelines in this area and use the 'consensus model' contained within them to describe the process of effective alcohol intervention. Using dialogue examples to illustrate the research, the authors introduce the literature on brief interventions and motivational interviewing to the nursing audience.