title: Effectiveness of brief interventions in primary health care settings to decrease alcohol consumption by adult non-dependent drinkers: a systematic review of systematic reviews.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the effectiveness of brief interventions in the primary health care setting to decrease alcohol consumption in non-alcoholic adult drinkers.
  
  
  METHODS
  Systematic review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses of randomized clinical trials published in English and Spanish and indexed in EMBASE, MEDLINE (PubMed), Web of Science, Scopus, and The Cochrane Library, from their inception to January 2014. The quality of the studies was evaluated with the AMSTAR instrument.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Seven studies, published from 1999 to 2011, were included in the review (six meta-analyses, one systematic review). These studies were heterogeneous in terms of design, type and length of interventions analyzed, participants, responsible professionals, and results. Five studies reported a moderate decrease in alcohol consumption and four showed a decrease in the number of participants who consumed alcohol above the established risk level.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Brief interventions have a moderate effect on reducing alcohol consumption among excessive drinkers or people who consume excessive amounts of alcohol and as a consequence these interventions increased the number of people drinking alcohol below established limits of risk. Brief interventions with multiple contacts or follow-up sessions are the most effective.
authors.affiliation: Social and Health Care Research Center, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Cuenca Spain. Electronic address: Celia.Alvarezbueno@uclm.es.
authors.forename: Celia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Álvarez-Bueno
authors.affiliation: Social and Health Care Research Center, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Cuenca Spain. Electronic address: Beatriz.RMartin@uclm.es.
authors.forename: Beatriz
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rodríguez-Martín
authors.affiliation: Primary Care Research Unit, the Alamedilla Health Center, Castilla and León Health Service-SACYL, Salamanca Spain; Medicine Department, University of Salamanca, REDIAPP, IBSAL, Salamanca Spain. Electronic address: lgarciao@usal.es.
authors.forename: Luis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: García-Ortiz
authors.affiliation: Primary Care Research Unit, the Alamedilla Health Center, Castilla and León Health Service-SACYL, Salamanca Spain; Medicine Department, University of Salamanca, REDIAPP, IBSAL, Salamanca Spain. Electronic address: magomez@usal.es.
authors.forename: Manuel Ángel
authors.initials: MÁ
authors.lastname: Gómez-Marcos
authors.affiliation: Social and Health Care Research Center, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Cuenca Spain; Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Chile. Electronic address: vicente.martinez@uclm.es.
authors.forename: Vicente
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Martínez-Vizcaíno
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000628:therapy; D019973:Alcohol-Related Disorders / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000628:therapy; D000488:Allied Health Personnel; D006801:Humans; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D011320:Primary Health Care; D012196:Review Literature as Topic
keywords: Alcohol consumption; Patient education; Prevention; Primary health care; Review