Canadian guideline for the clinical management of high-risk drinking and alcohol use disorder

To address this gap, the Canadian and the Guidelines Inter national Net- to emphasize both underused inter- Research Initiative in Substance Misuse work’s Principles for Disclosure of Inter- ventions that may be beneficial and convened a national committee to ests and Management of Conflicts to common prescribing and other prac- develop a guideline for the clinical man- ensure the guideline met in. [...] These principles include the importance of con- The full guideline is available in Appendix 1 (at www.cmaj.ca/ sidering the social determinants of health and incorporating lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.230715/tab-related-content) and harm reduction–, trauma- and violence-informed practice and includes comprehensive evidence summaries for each recom- culturally safe approaches as the standard of care for. [...] This guideline supports the use of a stepped and suggest use of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alco- integrated approach, in which treatment options are holism (NIAAA) screener, with a sensitivity of 0.96 and specificity continually adjusted to meet changing patient needs, of 0.85 for AUD when using a threshold of 2 or more drinking circumstances and goals. [...] consideration of biases and limitations of the evidence base as identified by the guideline committee, as described below: The diagnosis of AUD can be made when a patient has a prob- • lematic pattern of alcohol use over a year that leads to clinically High: Further research is very unlikely to change our confidence in the estimate of effect. [...] The overarching principles, outline, scope and contents of the guideline were approved by consensus of the full committee Management of competing interests upon discussion of the content of the British Columbia Guideline In keeping with Guidelines International Network’s Principles for and integrating suggestions from committee members.