Brief Interventions for Depression and Hazardous Drinking

In the last couple of decades, there have been a number of research breakthroughs with regard to effective behavioural treatments for mental health and addiction problems. Two health problems for which behavioural interventions have been shown to be effective and which have particular relevance to family practice are depression and hazardous drinking.

Family physicians are well situated to augment care for these problems through delivery of behavioural interventions – so long as these interventions are feasible to implement in the real world context of primary care. 

In order to be compatible with real-world practice, behavioural interventions must be:

• evidence-based
• acceptable to family physicians
• feasible within usual practice
• transferable (i.e., training must be brief and readily available)
• accompanied by self-management training for the patient