Topic;Doctors reminded to screen patient s for alcohol abuse.
A statement released by the United States Preventive Services Task Force revealed that about a third of America‘s population misuse alcohol and a few others are addicted to the the same.The panel is a of 16 experts,appointed by the government to make recommendations on screening tests among other ways to help prevent diseases based on medical evidence and low costs.This leads to a death rate of about 85,000 people in a year,thus, alcohol misuse becoming the leading cause of death to preventable deaths with hypertention and liver problems being among them,besides smoking and obesity in United States.
However following a recent research,the panel concluded that primary care doctors and nurses would help down the patients drinking habits by offering their clients a brief counseling session against the misuse of alcohol each time patients present themselves for primary care visits.
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism considered more than 14 and 7 drinks a week by men and women respectively as an excessive drinking the same is not recommended for .therefore,doctors and nurses are to establish how often their clients consume alcoholic substances.The counseling is designed to prevent clients from becoming alcoholics,since addicts needed more help.Further drinking would expose the clients to addiction.The counseling helped reduce the number of drinks in a week by 4 by clients who received the counseling than those who did not receive.