Dentists enlisted to tackle patients' alcohol excesses

Published on Saturday 21 November 2009 20:00

DENTISTS are to join the fight against Scotland's alcohol crisis – by quizzing patients about their drinking habits.

With alcohol misuse costing the country an estimated 2.25 billion a year, researchers in Glasgow are looking at new ways to reduce the growing burden on society.

They are now working with the NHS to develop a scheme where dentists ask patients how much they drink, so those who may have a problem can be referred for help.

The researchers have also highlighted the shocking extent of facial injuries linked to alcohol abuse.

The team from Glasgow University's dental school found that, between 2001 and 2006, 82,461 patients had been admitted to Scottish hospitals with facial injuries – more than a quarter of them had been drinking alcohol.

They also discovered men from the poorest areas were seven times more likely to suffer a major alcohol-related facial injury than those from more affluent districts.

Dr Christine Goodall, a senior clinical lecturer in oral surgery, said they found that giving people advice about safer drinking when they attended A&E or facial trauma clinics helped reduce future problems.

These so-called "brief interventions" could be provided in a range of locations to make sure as wide a spectrum of people as possible received any help they needed, she said.

"The first study we did has shown that they were effective in helping people cut down on their drinking," Goodall said. "By doing that, we are trying to prevent them suffering a second injury.

"Currently, dentists are not providing these sorts of interventions in their practice, but that is something that I am working on together with Health Scotland."

Goodall said such a system in dental practices would probably mean all patients being screened for alcohol problems, with those who scored highly referred for extra help.

The kind of questions patients could be asked include: "How many times would you have three or more drinks on one occasion?", "Has anyone ever told you that you should cut down on your drinking?" and "Have you ever felt guilty about your drinking?"

Goodall said most patients were not offended by being asked about their drinking habits by their dentist "We did a pilot study a couple of years ago. The one thing that came out of that very strongly was that patients were not offended by that at all.

"They saw it as a reasonable thing for the dentist to be asking them and felt it was important for their oral health as well. Alcohol is a big factor involved in causing oral cancer. If you explain that to patients they are OK about it."

She said they had recently completed a survey of dental practices in Scotland to see how much training dentists felt they would need to screen patients for alcohol problems. The results are awaited and it is hoped the scheme could be introduced in the near future.

"At the moment, you go to the dentist and you get asked about how much sugar you are eating and quite a lot of dentists do smoking cessation advice as that has a big association with oral cancer," Goodall said. "This is the next step. The good thing about dentists as opposed to a hospital unit is that dentists see patients regularly and are seeing patients who are not at the doctor's all the time."

She added that there was growing concern about the extent of alcohol-related injuries, particularly in the most deprived sections of society.