Welcome!

Continuing Education on Alcohol Abuse and Dependence

Temporarily Off-line

A unique online environment allows CTI and outside participants to create and deliver properly designed, complicated, respected, high-quality substance abuse-related curricula to health and non-health professional audiences that function autonomously once curriculum development is complete.

Best Practice - Core Courses

• Introduction to Alcohol Use Problems: Prevalence, Detection, and Diagnosis in Primary Care: This course begins by discussing the continuum of alcohol use problems. It then describes best practice guidelines for screening and provides comprehensive information on screening instruments that are used in primary care for screening adults.

• Brief Interventions for Alcohol Use Problems: Brief interventions are an evidence-based approach to addressing alcohol use problems in nonspecialist settings. This course discusses several approaches to brief interventions and how to implement them in practice.

• Pharmacotherapy for Alcohol Use Problems: This CME course provides comprehensive information on medications used to treat alcohol use disorders (including the indications, contraindications, and efficacy of these medications), as well as effective strategies for improving patient adherence with treatment. Note that medically assisted withdrawal using pharmacotherapy is not discussed.

• Referral and Monitoring of Alcohol Use Problems: This course advises primary care practitioners on effective referral and monitoring of patients with alcohol use problems.

• Kelly: A Brief Intervention (Case Study): This case serves as a supplement to the didactic courses found in the "Best Practice" section of the site. The case study allows users to test their ability to screen, assess, and intervene appropriately.

Alcohol Science

• Genetic Studies in Alcoholism: The focus of this course is genetics in relation to the risk for alcoholism. Relevant research on this topic, including both behavioral and molecular genetic studies, is discussed. Liability to alcoholism and variations in liability, as well as the role of the genotype in alcoholism, are also explored.

Best Practice - Other Courses

• Motivational Interviewing for Primary Care: This course was developed to introduce and demonstrate basic motivational interviewing techniques for primary care, techniques that have been used effectively to motivate people with alcohol, tobacco, and other substance abuse problems to change their behavior.

• Adolescent Alcohol Use: This course presents information on the extent of alcohol use problems in adolescents in the United States. Risk and protective factors and consequences of adolescent alcohol use are also presented.

• Screening for Alcohol Use Problems in Primary Care: Close to one-quarter of patients seen in primary care settings may be at risk for alcohol use problems or currently have a problem. This course was developed to explain how to better detect these patients. Best practice guidelines for screening are discussed, and information on screening instruments that are used in primary care for screening adults is provided. At the end of the course, there is an optional module on special population screening, including such groups as older adults, pregnant women, college students, and adolescents.

• Children of Alcoholics Through the Life Cycle: Risks and Impact: This course is designed to help the reader identify risk factors for future alcohol addiction and other mental illnesses in children of alcohol abusers. Issues specific to the assessment and treatment of this population and the impact of parental alcohol abuse on families will also be discussed.