Screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) is a short, cost-effective approach that can be delivered by nonclinical staff to identify problematic alcohol use patterns, intervene, and help guide offenders who need treatment to more specialized services. SBIRT is implemented primarily in medical settings. There is an extensive body of literature demonstrating that it is feasible to integrate screening and brief intervention services within broader, exist- ing healthcare systems (i.e., primary care clinics and emergency departments) using non-clinical staff; these services can effectively reduce problematic alcohol consumption and related consequences. The SBIRT model consists of using standardized screening measures to assess an individual’s alcohol use patterns and establish their level of risk for problems associated with use. A brief intervention, varying from education for low-risk users, brief motivational interviewing for at-risk users, and brief motivational interviewing and referral to treatment for high-risk users, is then provided. Because SBIRT is designed to be incorporated into the framework of an already-existing process to provide opportunistic screening and intervention services by non-clinical staff in nontraditional settings, it potentially could be implemented in other settings, such as the criminal justice system. Due to the rates of untreated alcohol problems among DWI offenders and the association between problematic patterns of alcohol use and repeat offending, SBIRT may offer a relatively low-cost intervention that could have a significant impact on public safety.
Highly recommended you to read the below paper:
Mullen, J., Ryan, S. R., Mathias, C. W., & Dougherty, D. M. (2015). Feasibility of a computer-assisted alcohol screening, brief intervention and referral to a treatment program for DWI offenders. Addiction science & clinical practice, 10(1), 1-10.
