Intervention effect of Alcoholic Anonymus on drinking relapse among patients with alcohol dependence

Objective To examine intervention effect of Alcoholic Anonymus(AA)on drinking relapse among patients with alcohol dependence.Methods Totally 86 patients with alcohol dependence undertaking treatment in a hospital were recruited from April 2014 through April 2015 and randomly divided into a peer support group and a control group and the participants in the peer support group were assigned into either a family intervention subgroup or a site intervention subgroup based on the convenience of the AA;the participants in the control group were given conventional follow-up intervention of one time/ per month and those in the peer support group were given AA intervention of one time/ per two weeks.Self-Rating Anxiety Scale(SAS), Self-Rating Depression Scale(SDS), motivation assessment questionnaire, and alcohol craving scale were adopted to collect information on negative mood, psychological desire, and drinking motivation intensity in the survey.All the participants were followed up for one year and the status of drinking relapse was recorded once per 3 months.Results The average score of SAS and SDS were 49.61±6.47 and 53.46±6.43 for family subgroup, 57.59±7.02 and 60.36±7.11 for field subgroup, and 66.29±7.13 and 69.82±7.04 for control group, respectively.The family subgroup had the lowest scores for SAS, SDS, psychological desire, and drinking motivation intensity, followed by the field subgroup, and the control group had the highest, with significant differences among the groups(P<0.05).The combined rate of drinking relapse during the one year follow-up was 22.73% for field subgroup and 42.86% for site subgroup;for the control group, the drinking relapse rate was 62.79% at the 8th month of the follow-up and then increased to 74.42%;among the three groups, the family subgroup had a lower drinking relapse rate, while the control group had a higher drinking relapse rate, with significant differences(all P<0.05).Conclusion AA can effectively improve negative emotions and psychological desire, promote abstinence motivation, and decrease drinking relapse among the patients with alcohol dependence.