High-risk alcohol use is one of the most common risk factors for surgical complications among elective surgical patients. There is a pressing need to identify scalable intervention strategies that promote short- and longer-term alcohol use reductions among surgical patients.
To address this problem, Dr. Anne Fernandez received $3 million in funding from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to conduct a 5-year study. This sequential, multiple assignment, randomized trial will identify the most efficacious adaptive intervention approaches to reduce alcohol use before and after surgery.
The goal of this work is promote alcohol use reduction before and after surgery to improve surgical outcomes and then selectively provide additional interventions to promote longer-term alcohol use reduction.
“Many patients don’t know that alcohol use, even more than a few drinks a day, prior to surgery can increase the risk of experiencing surgical complications. Alcohol use negatively impacts every organ system in the body, but this is reversible with a month of abstinence leading up to surgery. This work will evaluate whether health coaching and other approaches can support patients in reducing alcohol use, improve surgical health, and reduce hospital costs.”
