Priority 17 from the Alcohol-related Liver Disease PSP

UNCERTAINTY: What are the most effective messages and how are they best delivered in helping a patient with alcohol-related liver disease understand the condition and the importance of abstinence? (JLA PSP Priority 17)
Overall ranking 17
JLA question ID 0044/17
Explanatory note (including examples of original survey submissions) Providing the motivation for a person to change a behaviour, such as to stop alcohol, consumption can be very difficult to achieve.  The potential factors leading to the heavy alcohol use and the information or message that may trigger this being controlled and stopping are individual and poorly understood.  More important than medication or therapies to aid alcohol cessation is a person deciding they are going to stop drinking and therefore knowing how best to lead a person to this point is central to allowing a person to recover, their liver disease to improve, with a consequent dramatically improved survival.   "The effects of drinking need to be more specific.  I was given numbers from my blood test that meant absolutely nothing to me.  I needed to see people who were suffering/pictures of what it was doing to your body on the inside.  Perhaps that would have made me understand what effect the alcohol was having on my body."
Evidence

None identified
Health Research Classification System category Oral and Gastrointestinnal
Extra information provided by this PSP
Submitted by 1 patient, 1 carer and 1 professional
PSP information
PSP unique ID 0044
PSP name Alcohol-related Liver Disease
Total number of uncertainties identified by this PSP. 45 (To see a full list of all uncertainties identified, please see the detailed spreadsheet held on the JLA website)
Date of priority setting workshop 16 September 2016