Heavy Drinking among Women Receiving Intensive Motivational Interviewing: 6-Month Outcomes

ABSTRACT

Compared to men, women with alcohol use disorders experience more severe consequences related to drinking. Intensive Motivational Interviewing (IMI) is a new 9-session version of Motivational Interviewing (MI) designed for women with alcohol use disorders. The current study reports outcomes from a randomized clinical trial of IMI compared to a single session of MI. Data were collected at baseline, 2-month, and 6-month follow-up. In addition to a standard “intent-to-treat” (ITT) analysis, we conducted disaggregated subgroup analyses of women who were heavy drinkers and a “per protocol” (PP) analysis of women in the IMI condition who attended 7–9 sessions (80% of the IMI sample). Women in both study conditions made large reductions in drinking between baseline and 2 months that were maintained at 6 months. Generalized estimating equation (GEE) models using the full sample (N = 215) did not show time by condition differences, but heavy drinkers(n = 153) receiving IMI showed significantly larger reductions in drinking at 2- and 6-month follow-up than the comparison condition. Assessment of heavy drinkers using the PP sample showed larger between condition differences favoring IMI at both follow-up time points. Results support the efficacy of IMI in terms of reducing drinking, particularly among women who are heavy drinkers.

KEYWORDS:

• Women
• alcohol
• motivational interviewing
• intensive motivational interviewing
• heavy drinking

Acknowledgments

Supported by NIAAA grant AA022857. Clinical Trials Number NTC02272023.

We acknowledge the support of the New Leaf Treatment Center in Lafayette, CA and the women who participated in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism [AA022857].