Moderate drinking and motivational enhancement therapy

Alcohol consumption rates of Korean men and women are 85.8% and 65.4%, respectively. In regard to the amount of drinking, the highest frequency in men, among 37.2%, was over 10 glasses and in women was 1-2 glasses (1 glass, 12-14 g of alcohol) per day. Moderate drinking was defined as 2 glasses per day for men and 1 glass per day for women. Drinking beyond the moderate level could be risky or problematic. Alcohol related problems such as liver disease, cancer, cerebrovascular disease, accidents, crimes, injuries, and social and family problems in Korea create a great socioeconomic burden and threaten public health. Evidence-based treatments for problematic drinking, such as brief intervention, behavior change counseling, and motivational enhancement interviewing or therapy, have been suggested. An especially effective method would be motivation enhancement treatment (MET) due to since it is a client-centered approach and enhances self-efficacy based decisional balance. The major techniques of MET are feedback, responsibility, advice about changing, menu of change options, empathic counseling, self efficacy. The success factors for MET are sit squarely, open posture, lean toward patient, eye contact, relax posture. However, scientific accumulation of research results on the benefit of counseling for problematic drinking in Korea is still insufficient to provide the evidence for above treatment techniques.