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A Randomized Controlled Trial of Brief Motivational Interviewing in Impaired Driving Recidivists: A 5‐Year Follow‐Up of Traffic Offenses and Crashes
Author(s) -
Ouimet Marie Claude,
Dongier Maurice,
Di Leo Ivana,
Legault Lucie,
Tremblay Jacques,
Chanut Florence,
Brown Thomas G.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
alcoholism: clinical and experimental research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 153
eISSN - 1530-0277
pISSN - 0145-6008
DOI - 10.1111/acer.12180
Subject(s) - motivational interviewing , psychological intervention , randomized controlled trial , poison control , injury prevention , psychology , driving under the influence , binge drinking , medicine , brief intervention , suicide prevention , psychiatry , medical emergency , surgery
Background In a previously published randomized controlled trial ( B rown et al. A lcohol C lin E xp R es 2010; 34 , 292–301), our research team showed that a 30‐minute brief motivational interviewing ( BMI ) session was more effective in reducing percentages of risky drinking days in drunk driving recidivists than a control information–advice intervention at 12‐month follow‐up. In this sequel to the initial study, 2 main hypotheses were tested: (i) exposure to BMI increases the time to further arrests and crashes compared with exposure to the control intervention ( CTL ) and (ii) characteristics, such as age, moderate the benefit of BMI . Methods A sample of 180 community‐recruited recidivists who had drinking problems participated in the study. Participants gave access to their provincial driving records at baseline and were followed up for a mean of 1,684.5 days ( SD = 155.7) after randomization to a 30‐minute BMI or CTL session. Measured outcomes were driving arrests followed by convictions including driving while impaired ( DWI ), speeding, or other moving violations as well as crashes. Age, readiness to change alcohol consumption, alcohol misuse severity, and number of previous DWI convictions were included as potential moderators of the effect of the interventions. Results For arrests, C ox proportional hazards modeling revealed no significant differences between the BMI and the CTL group. When analyses were adjusted to age tertile categories, a significant effect of BMI in the youngest age tertile (<43 years old) emerged. For crashes, no between‐group differences were detected. Conclusions BMI was better at delaying DWI and other dangerous traffic violations in at‐risk younger drivers compared with a CTL similar to that provided in many remedial programs. BMI may be useful as an opportunistic intervention for DWI recidivism prevention in settings such as DWI courts. Treatment effectiveness studies are needed to ascertain how the present findings generalize to the real‐world conditions of mandated relicensing programs.