Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) as a Public Health and Prevention Strategy to Address Substance Misuse and Addiction

Author(s):  
Alexandra Nowalk ◽  
Janice Pringle

SBIRT (screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment) is a comprehensive and integrated public health approach that aims to address hazardous and harmful substance use in patients through universal screening for substance misuse risk and the subsequent delivery of appropriate evidence-based interventions to reduce this risk. SBIRT has been implemented throughout all 50 states in a wide variety of medical settings. Thus far, over one million people across the country have been screened for substance use using SBIRT practices. SBIRT has also been implemented internationally. SBIRT is predicated on the premise that, like other chronic diseases, substance use falls along a clinical spectrum ranging from low to high risk. Patient substance use can be stratified across increasing risk levels that correlate with an appropriate disease state extending from abstinence to a diagnosable substance use disorder. Implications for treatment and prevention programs are discussed.

BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. e055991
Author(s):  
Jean-François Crépault ◽  
Tara Marie Watson ◽  
Carol Strike ◽  
Sarah Bonato ◽  
Jürgen Rehm

IntroductionThe concept of a ‘public health approach’ to substance use is frequently but inconsistently invoked. This inconsistency is reflected in public policy, with governments using the term ‘public health approach’ in contradictory ways. This aim of this study is to clarify what is meant and understood when the term ‘public health approach’ is used in the context of substance use.Methods and analysisWe will conduct a systematic search of Medline, Embase, Scopus, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Sociological Abstracts and PAIS Index. Eligible articles will be from peer-reviewed journals, in English, with full text available. There will be no limits on year of publication. Substance use must be the primary topic of the article. Editorials, commentaries and letters to the editor will be included, but not commentaries on other articles, unless the definition of a public health approach is central to the commentary. Data selection and collection will be conducted independently by two researchers, with a third separately resolving any disagreement. To answer the research question, we will extract authors’ definitions of a public health approach to substance use as well as any descriptions of the central principles, characteristics and components of such an approach. To synthesise the data, we will employ thematic synthesis. Coding will be conducted by one researcher and verified by a second; two researchers will then group the codes into themes using an inductive process. Finally, the full research team will develop a set of analytic themes, which will be presented as a narrative.Ethics and disseminationEthics approval is not needed since the research will only involve published work. Our findings will be disseminated in a peer-reviewed journal and, if possible, at conferences.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42021270632.


Author(s):  
Ren-Zong QIU

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.本文討論了艾滋病在中國大陸傳播引起的倫理和政策問題。作者首先指出在預防控制艾滋病問題上中國正處在十字路口。挨著作者分析了中國會不會成為艾滋病和艾滋病病毒感染的高發國,討論了制訂有效而合乎倫理的艾滋病防治政策的理論預設和價值以及評價政策的倫理學框架,討論了艾滋病治療和預防中的倫理和政策問題。The AIDS/HIV prevention and control in China is at crossroad. At present, there are insufficient grounds for us to say that China will definitely become a country with a high HIV infection rate in the future. However, we have much less sufficient grounds for saying that China will never reach that stage. On the contrary, we have much more reason to say that it is very probable for China to become a country with high HIV infection rate if we leave the current policy unchanged. The reasons are: economic reforms associated with large scale population movements in unprecedented way; proliferation of all sorts of high risk behavior, presence of other STDs which facilitate the spread of HIV; the risk of iatrogenic spread through untested blood transfusion; the "sex revolution" with changes in patterns of sex behaviour and increased casual sex, multiple sex partners among the younger generation; most Chinese still do not know how to protect themselves; and the ethical and legal atmosphere necessary for effectively preventing the HIV epidemic has not been formed.The conventional public health approach is not sufficient to prevent or control an HIV epidemic. When the cases of HIV infection were detected one by one in China, health professionals and programmers believed that they could take a conventional public health approach to cope with HIV epidemic. But they are wrong. HIV infection is an epidemic so special that the conventional public health measures such as testing, reporting, contact tracing, isolation are inadequate or ineffective to control the epidemic. HIV is often spread among those groups who are usually marginalized or stigmatized by society through behaviours both confidential or private.An effective policy of preventing HIV cannot be insensitive to ethical issues. However, many of health professionals and programmers bypassed ethical issues emerged in the prevention of the HIV epidemic. Even some health educators, sexologists and officials believe that "AIDS is the punishment by God" or "AIDS is the punishment for promiscuity". For them suffering AIDS is not morally irrelevant, and thus the ancient conception of disease was revived. But this conception of disease has already proved wrong and harmful to the treatment and prevention of any disease, especially to HIV. The consequence entailed by this conception is that the IIIV positive and AIDS patients were discriminated against and stigmatized. When their positive serological status was disclosed, they were faced with the risk of being expelled from school or fired from working unit, even rejected for admission into hospital, and their tights to confidentiality and privacy were often infringed upon. If all these ethical issues cannot be properly treated, how can those persons in danger or risk get access to information, services, education, counselling and techniques necessary to prevent HIV infection? One Chinese adage says that "You cannot have fish and bear palm both". In the prevention of HIV epidemic we have to have the protection of public health and the safeguarding of individual rights.For controlling HIV epidemic what we need is not a repressive law, but a supportive law to build a supportive environment in treatment and prevention of AIDS/HIV. So the policy and law involving AIDS/ HIV should be reformed.DOWNLOAD HISTORY | This article has been downloaded 19 times in Digital Commons before migrating into this platform.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria N. Mutiso ◽  
Prof. David M. Ndetei ◽  
Esther N. Muia ◽  
Rita K. Alietsi ◽  
Lydia Onsinyo ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Changing lifestyles in Kenya can lead to eating related behaviors and problems. The more severe problems are likely to manifest in clinical settings, but the majority and less severe forms will remain unrecognized. There is therefore the need to take a public health awareness approach to identify cases at community level and initiate appropriate intervention. This requires characterization of Eating Disorders (ED) and its associations in the local context. Our focus will be on the more common Binge Eating Disorder (BED). The overarching objective of this study is to generate Kenyan data on BED and fill a gap that exists not only in Kenya but Africa in general. The specific aims are: (1) To document the patterns and prevalence of different symptoms of BED in a student population whose age range represents a significant proportion of the population. (2) To determine associated psychiatric and substance use disorders (3) To determine independent predictors of BED. Method: We administered to a total of 9742 participants following tools: A researcher designed socio-demographic and economic indicators questionnaire; an instrument on DSM-IV diagnosis of BED and its various symptoms; instruments to determine DSM-IV psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, affectivity, psychosis and stress indicators. The participants were high school, college and university students in four out of the 47 counties in Kenya. We used descriptive and inferential analysis to determine prevalence and association of the different variables. The independent predictors of BED were generated from the generalized linear model (p<0.05). Results: We found a prevalence of 3.2% of BED and a wide range of BED symptoms varying from 8.1% to 19.0%. There were significant (p<0.05) associations between BED with various socio-demographic variables and psychiatric and substance use disorders. However, only some of these disorders were independent predictors of BED. Conclusion: Our findings on prevalence of BED and significant associations with various psychiatric disorders and substance use disorders are similar to those obtained in HICs using similar large scale samples in non-clinical populations. Economic status is not a predictor of BED. Our findings suggest a public health approach to awareness and management.


2021 ◽  
pp. 337-348
Author(s):  
Giang Le Minh ◽  
Steve Shoptaw

Around the world, substance use disorder is best understood along a spectrum that ranges from no use or use that causes no problems (i.e. the majority of people) through occasional use that brings occasional problems of moderate severity (i.e. some people) to frequent use that with severe problems (i.e. a minority of people). Across cultures, few people use substances (<10%) at levels that present severe problems. This chapter provides an overview of global trends of substance use and substance use disorder, offers criteria that define substance use disorder, and presents epidemiology on cannabis, opioids, amphetamine-type stimulants, and cocaine/crack. Relevant findings on public health consequences and intersections between substance use, infectious diseases, and other health threats are presented. A methodological toolbox containing best methods for studying substance use is provided. The chapter closes with a discussion of approaches to treatment and prevention of substance misuse, emphasizing integration of services (e.g. a one-stop shop).


2021 ◽  
pp. 105984052110095
Author(s):  
Anna Bourgault ◽  
LuAnn Etcher

Substance abuse in adolescents has been recognized as a public health problem at the national and global levels. Adolescents are at risk for experimenting with substances. School nurses in secondary schools are well positioned to screen and counsel students on substance use. In this project, school nurses’ self-efficacy levels increased in using the Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) process posteducation, and SBIRT was integrated into school nurses’ practice. Initiatives aimed at stopping or preventing substance use are beneficial for a healthy society.


Author(s):  
Michael Botticelli ◽  
Colleen L. Barry

Stigma influences attitudes toward individuals and groups, and these attitudes are expressed in how we as a nation have dealt with addiction in general and the opioid crisis in particular. Stigma is defined as a strong lack of respect for a person or a group of people or a bad opinion of them because they have done something or have traits of which society disapproves. Stigma creates misperceptions about how to end the opioid crisis and acts as a barrier for individuals with opioid use disorder to seek treatment and engage in recovery. Public attitudes toward addiction need to be changed to effectively end the epidemic, as does the language used to describe individuals who misuse drugs. Misperceptions and lack of understanding of addiction as a chronic disease have promoted the criminalization of individuals with substance use disorder rather than a public health approach. The case is made for policy changes that support new policy directions that stress parity in treatment for mental health and substance misuse with other “physical health” conditions as well as suggestions for better communications strategies to reduce stigma.


Few contributions to the field concerning the current opioid crisis in the United States focus sufficient attention on the public health aspects of the epidemic and share examples that practitioners can use to prevent opioid use disorder and the broader issues of substance misuse and addiction. A great deal of prior published work has concentrated on health care and clinical perspectives related to the crisis, including developing prescribing guidelines, enhancing prescription drug monitoring programs, scaling up access to overdose reversal medication, and making medication-assisted treatment more widely available nationwide. This book adds to and complements this prior work by addressing the central tenets of the public health approach to the opioid crisis. Topics include how to best support community-based, primary prevention of substance misuse and addiction in various settings with diverse populations and how to effectively address the cultural, social, and environmental aspects of health that are driving the epidemic. Chapters describe how governmental public health agencies play a significant role in responding to the epidemic, in both public health’s traditional approach to disease surveillance and control and contemporary approaches to health promotion that include building community resilience, addressing the impact of adverse childhood events, and mitigating the root causes of addiction community-wide. This volume can be used to explore what it means to address primary prevention of addiction and how public health practitioners have led efforts to promote “opioid stewardship” at the local, state, and federal levels.


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