Asking Standard Questions about Addiction Could Curb Drug Problem

While most would agree that addiction is a growing problem, not everyone agrees as to why the trend has not been reversed. According to a recent Herald piece, the problem may be with health care providers.

This article suggests that doctors are not asking the right questions—or any questions at all—to determine whether a person is suffering from addiction. The author asks the question, “If more doctors started asking, would more drug and alcohol abusers ‘fess up so they could get help?”

According to Dr. Gail D’Onofrio, emergency medicine chief at Yale-New Haven Hospital, although as many as half of ER visits involve illegal drug use or alcohol abuse, health care providers are more likely to ask if a patient has had a tetanus shot in the last 10 years than ask if he or she is struggling with addiction.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse has established a new program that aims to help health care workers get past the stigma so that they will ask more patients for simple clues to addiction at every visit. The goal is to encourage these questions not just in the ER but every time a patient sees a doctor.

Offered as a computerized guide, the program takes patient’s answers to various behavior questions in order to analyze their risk for a serious substance abuse problem. It then advises doctors on what steps to take.

The goal of this system is to identify those who need substance abuse treatment and make it available for them. It is estimated that more than 23 million Americans have an addiction or dependence problem and need help.

A government study completed last year found that brief in-office counseling or referral to a specialty center could help reduce drug use. Other studies suggest that people with brewing drug or alcohol problems actually see the doctor more often than their sober counterparts, suggesting that they may be seeking help.

"There are all sorts of people who are using alcohol, drugs, who are continuing to work and do their jobs and slowly spiraling down, who are not the hard-core users," says Dr. Brian Jack, a family medicine specialist at Boston University Medical School. "Those are people who are in the clinics every single day for all sorts of different things."
 

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