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Alcohol Screening: A Qualitative Study

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1. Because of the increased amount of policies in places that favor populations-based alcohol screening in primary care, this qualitative research aimed to finding ways to understand the factors that might contribute to low sensitivity of alcohol screening. Even though, the Veterans Affairs (VA) Office had a high success rate of screenings using an electronic clinical reminder to prompt and facilitate screening and documents results, the sensitivity for alcohol screening for identifying unhealthy alcohol use was still low in VA clinics. Researchers used observational method to conduct the research. While the clinical staff conducts alcohol screening, the observers observed the process and taking hand written notes which were transcribed and …show more content…

The clinical staffs that were responsible for alcohol screening were recruited opportunistically at each site and asked for permission to be observed during their usual course of clinical care. Given that the clinical staffs were willing to be observed, it allowed the observers to freely observe and take notes without having to worry for any projected objections from the staff with their observational findings. At the end, the participating clinical staff occasionally offered their opinions regarding clinical reminders and or alcohol screening and these were also documented in the observer’s notes. One of the major stated strength of the observation strengths was that all the observers were Masters Level; having the ability to take notes of the use of clinical reminders and alcohol screening while observing was detrimental at the end to identify why using clinical reminders lowered the sensitivity of the screening process. By using the observation method, the observers identified three themes specific to alcohol screening. First, most screening was conducted verbally, guided by the clinical reminder either on laminated papers or paper based. Second, specific verbal screening practices were identified as a contribution to low sensitivity of clinical screening for instances the clinical staff were making assumptions or suggestions to input responses of …show more content…

It is also imperative to reevaluate the purpose of the research and its methods of how to go about doing it. The fact that there was no consideration of the patient as another party in the research was big loophole in the research. Moreover, I think the results were biased because the clinical staffs were briefed on the purpose before the observation. It left rooms for the participant to circumvent its screening approach to fit the study. Evaluating this research opened my mind to understanding researches results just by looking at the approached being used. In which helps me to answer my practice-based question. 4. Definitely the information I learned from the qualitative approach is deeper than the experimental and quasi-experimental designs. Understanding the purpose of the research and Unaware of the directions that will be presented totally makes a huge difference with the findings. With the qualitative research, the problem is known and it is being identified. But with quasi and experimental designs, it seems like a hit and miss

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