Although NICE advises that IBA be offered to those aged 16 and over, there is limited evidence as to the effectiveness and best delivery approaches for children and young people. However a new SIPS junior trial is getting underway focussing on younger adolescents presenting to A&E departments (but don’t expect the results anytime too soon – it’s a 5 year project!). The SIPS junior website has a good summary of the issue though, highlighting:
“advice to children under 15 years (2009) is to abstain from alcohol due to risks of harm, and 15-17 year olds are advised not to drink, but if they do drink it should be no more than 3-4 units and 2-3 units per week in males and females, respectively. In contrast, alcohol use is increasing in adolescents in the UK: the average amount consumed by 11-15 year olds doubled in the last 13 years to 2007. Adolescents in the UK are now amongst the heaviest drinkers in Europe.
Excessive drinking in adolescents is associated with increased risk of accidents, injuries, self harm, unprotected and regretted sex, violence and disorder, poisoning and accidental death. Early drinking in adolescence is associated with intellectual impairment and an increased risk of more serious alcohol problems in later life. Methods of alcohol screening and early intervention have been developed for adolescents in the USA, and show evidence of benefit, but have not been studied in the UK. Further these methods have several shortcomings including not providing screening and intervention methods appropriate to the age and developmental stage of the younger adolescent.”
In the meantime, I believe there is still a good case for IBA with younger adolescents as long as safeguarding and other risks are covered (see NICE PH24 recommendation 6). If IBA opportunities present, practitioners should be able to use a combination of common sense and good IBA skills. For instance it’s broadly accepted that children and young people are more likely to be motivated around risks to their personal safety, injuries, appearance or other more immediate harms. So highlighting things like risks to high blood pressure probably aren’t going to be the most effective approaches for framing IBA for younger groups. Nonetheless, we shouldn’t overlook that we have been seeing a trend in younger and younger adults presenting with liver disease.
Here are a few useful IBA resources aimed at practitioners working with children and young people:
- IBA ‘brief advice’ tool YP version
- NIAA CYP Youth IBA pocket guide
- NIAA CYP Youth IBA guide FULL version
One of the key things SIPS Junior will reveal will be which screening (identification) tools may be best suited for younger adolescents. For children aged 10-15 in contact with professionals, NICE suggests consent and use of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) to obtain a detailed history of their alcohol use, including background factors such as family problems or other issues.
A comprehensive list of further guidance, resources and reports relating to children and young people is available here from the Alcohol Learning Centre.
