Training Primary Health Care Staff about Alcohol: A study of alcohol trainers in the UK

Abstract

It has consistently been emphasised that maximal identification and management of alcohol abusers requires a major commitment by primary health care workers. Although evidence suggests that brief alcohol interventions delivered in general practice may be successful, research also shows general practitioners (GPs) to be reluctant to work with alcohol patients. Training has been proposed as a means to overcome any barriers to intervention with some empirical support. However, limited evidence shows primary care workers to be under-represented among those attending alcohol training programmes. This study examines the proposal that primary care practitioners are not being attracted into training not because they themselves remain unmotivated to learn, but rather that trainers hold a set of beliefs about such workers' training needs which makes them unattractive for recruitment. In general, although trainers believed GPs to be the most appropriate profession to train about alcohol, training frequency for these subjects was lower than for other health-care groups. Other results showed a belief that it is more important to train all worker groups with respect to attitudes when compared with alcohol-related skills and knowledge. Finally, training across addictive substances was not perceived to be necessarily the optimal approach.