• Thomas Fankhaenel, Katrin Schulz, Lars-Eric Petersen, Andreas Klement, and Thomas Frese.
• University of Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany. thomas.fankhaenel@srh.de.
• Bmc Fam Pract. 2020 Aug 19; 21 (1): 170.

BackgroundGeneral Practitioners' (GPs) readiness to implement screening and brief intervention (SBI) to treat patients with excessive alcohol consumption is low. Several studies identified crucial barriers such as insufficient financial reimbursement. In contrast to the barriers-account, we assume that low implementation readiness of GPs may be less attributed to external barriers but rather more so to inherent characteristics of SBI. To test our assumption, we conducted a vignette study assessing the GPs' readiness to implement SBI in comparison to a pharmacological intervention also designed for the treatment of excessive drinkers in relation to standard or above-standard financial reimbursement. According to our hypothesis GPs should be less ready to implement SBI regardless of financial reimbursement.MethodsA convenience sample of GPs was recruited to answer the questionnaire. To assess the GPs' implementation readiness a 4-item 6-point Likert scale was developed and pretested.ResultsOne hundred forty GPs completed the questionnaire. GPs were more ready to implement the pharmacological intervention than SBI, F(1,132) = 27.58, p > .001 (main effect). We found no effect for financial reimbursement, F(1,132) = 3.60, ns, and no interaction effect, F(1,132) = 2.20, ns.ConclusionsFurther research should investigate more thoroughly the crucial characteristics of SBI to initiate a modification process finally leading to more effective primary care dependency prevention.

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