Brief Alcohol Treatment for Women Veterans in Primary Care

A Brief, Integrated Intervention for Women Veterans With Unhealthy Alcohol Use in Primary Care

The goal of this study is to develop and test a brief behavioral treatment for women Veterans with alcohol use in primary care. The study involves a development phase, an open trial phase, and a pilot randomized controlled trial. The main questions it aims to answer are:

• Is the treatment feasible and acceptable to women Veteran primary care patients?
• Can the treatment help reduce alcohol use, alcohol-related problems, and improve quality of life? Researchers will compare the new treatment to usual treatment that primary care patients would normally receive. Participants will be asked to participate in either the new behavioral treatment or usual primary care treatment and attend 3 appointments to answer questions about their alcohol use, quality of life, other mental health symptoms, and what they thought of their behavioral treatment.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Veteran status
• past-year Syracuse VAMC or community-based outpatient clinic (CBOC) primary care appointment
• identify as woman OR use women's PC services
• unhealthy alcohol use (AUDIT ≥ 7)

Exclusion Criteria:

• current substance use treatment outside PC
• current psychosis, mania, or dementia (>10 on the BOMC)
• need for a higher level of alcohol or substance use care (detoxification, residential treatment) as indicated by a) patient preference b) withdrawal symptoms that indicate a need to monitor (≥23 on the AWSC) or high risk substance use (≥27 on the ASSIST)
• imminent risk of suicide.