Summary of: Current practices and intention to provide alcohol-related health advice in primary dental care

Key Points

• The delivery of alcohol-related health advice to patients is advocated as one measure to moderate alcohol consumption.

• Highlights that GDPs are in an ideal position to identify excessive alcohol consumption and offer advice.

• Posits that beliefs derived from psychological models may be helpful in understanding this behaviour and may provide targets for an intervention to encourage behaviour change.

Abstract

Objectives To determine whether general dental practitioners (GDPs) currently provide alcohol-related advice (ARA) and to inform the development of an intervention, should one be required.

Method Cross-sectional postal survey of a random sample of 300 GDPs in Scotland. The questionnaire assessed beliefs derived from psychological models that explain behaviour in terms of beliefs that are amenable to change, and so may inform development of an intervention to encourage the provision of ARA.

Results Sixty percent of GDPs responded. Eighty-three percent of participating GDPs (145/175) had not provided ARA to patients in the previous ten working days. Attitude (perceived consequences), control beliefs (perceived difficulty), subjective norm (perceived social pressure), and self-efficacy (confidence) significantly predicted intention to provide ARA. Alcohol-related knowledge or personal alcohol behaviour did not predict intention to provide ARA.

Conclusions There is scope to increase the provision of ARA in primary care dentistry and this study identified predictive beliefs, which could be targeted to encourage this behaviour. The next phase is to develop and test an intervention to encourage GDPs to provide ARA.

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