and (d) what is the optimum length, frequency and content of brief alcohol intervention, and for how long is it effective?
Internet interventions herald new possibilities for developing the content of brief interventions and potentially pose something of an identity crisis for brief interventions.
There is also a need to determine the optimum length, frequency and necessary content of brief intervention required to maintain longer-term effects.
Second, given the weak relationship between duration of counselling and outcome, it may be the case that the structure and content of brief interventions has more influence on patients' drinking than the total length of delivery (Kaner et al., 2009).
The content of brief interventions changed over the period of study, although not in ways well informed by research advances, and there were also obvious continuities, with a renewed emphasis on the facilitation of self-change being one important consequence of the development of internet applications.
The contents of brief interventions included manuals/self-help, feedback and advice, brief counselling and referral.
Despite the compilation of an evidence-base in primary care over approximately 25 years, there remains a lack of clarity about the contents of brief interventions 72 and the extent to which existing trials can be interpreted as efficacy or effectiveness studies with important implications for the generalizability of these data 60, 70, 73.
The fact that the content of the briefing was shrouded in mystery added fuel to the hype.
Over the years, the content of these briefing papers has evolved.
However, this meta-regression analysis focused on the length of time clinicians spent delivering brief intervention to patients and not the content of the brief intervention sessions.
