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Abstract Introduction: Alcohol-related emergency department attendance in adolescents should be considered as a valuable opportunity to address and mitigate future alcohol consumption. Therefore, a paediatric department of a major district hospital in the Netherlands developed an outpatient preventive program targeting adolescents admitted for acute alcohol intoxication. The primary aim of this study is to evaluate how adolescent drinking patterns participating in the preventive program developed over time. Methods This retrospective observational study was conducted in the Reinier de Graaf hospital, Delft, the Netherlands. The outpatient preventive program consists of three main components: an initial intervention, subsequent an extended counselling session and psychological interventions. The alcohol consumption was compared at three time points: before the admission for acute alcohol intoxication(T = 0), 4–6 weeks after hospital admission(T = 1) and 6–12 months after the hospital admission(T = 2). Moreover, sociodemographic variables, adolescent risk-taking behaviour and family and pedagogical factors were included in secondary analysis. Results In total, 310 patients underwent the outpatient preventive program from 2014–2022. Adolescents who experienced an alcohol intoxication hospital admittance exhibited more adolescent risk-taking behaviour compared to the Dutch average. Initially, these adolescents had significantly higher rates of alcohol consumption and drunkenness. Alcohol use decreased significantly in the month following intoxication, even below the Dutch average. Though, 6–12 months later, their alcohol consumption increased but remained statistically lower and involved less binge drinking than the Dutch average. Conclusions The findings of this study demonstrate that a preventive program following acute alcohol intoxication contributes to the reduction of adolescent alcohol use and associated risk-taking behaviours.
Pigeaud et al. (Thu,) studied this question.