Background: Occupational health care (OHC) was part of the Swedish Risk Drinking Project, a government-supported continuing professional education (CPE) endeavour for health professionals, 2004-10.
Aims: To investigate OHC professionals' perceived knowledge concerning patient counselling on alcohol, perceived efficiency in achieving patient changes, use of questionnaires and biomarkers, amount and content of their alcohol-related CPE, their reasons for participating in this CPE and improvements experienced in addressing alcohol issues in the last 3 years.
Methods: Baseline 2005 and follow-up 2008 data were collected by means of anonymous questionnaires to all physicians and nurses in OHC.
Results: Response rates ranged from 53 to 80%. The share of nurses and physicians who had taken part in ≥ 3 days training on risk drinking issues rose from 10 to 59% and from 7 to 59%, respectively. The OHC professionals' perceived knowledge and efficiency concerning lifestyle counselling improved from 2005 to 2008, considerably more so for alcohol than the other lifestyle issues. The most competent nurses and physicians were more likely to have participated in training lasting ≥ 3 days. The most competent nurses and physicians had become better at initiating conversations about alcohol and at informing, providing advice and discussing alcohol with their clients.
Conclusions: There were major improvements in the OHC professionals' perceived knowledge concerning alcohol counselling and efficiency in influencing patients' alcohol habits after participation in a comprehensive CPE project. Overall, the nurses achieved more improvements than the physicians.