NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People whose drinking lands them in the emergency room may benefit from telephone counseling sessions in the days afterward, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that among 285 high-risk drinkers who ended up in the ER, those who received two phone calls from a counselor after discharge were able to cut back on their drinking and driving.

The findings, published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, suggest that it is possible to change the behavior of problem drinkers who pass through busy ERs.

A number of medical groups say that ERs should screen patients for alcohol problems and offer brief counseling. But it is not clear how to best do this in a setting where providers are dealing with acute injuries and illness, and patients themselves are injured or, in some cases, intoxicated.

The current study looked at whether offering counseling after the ER visit might be effective.

All of the study patients had come to one of three ERs for non- critical injuries. A screening questionnaire was used to spot those who were risky drinkers -- defined as more than 14 drinks per week among men or more than seven drinks per week among women.

A few days after their discharge, half of the patients received a call from a counselor who asked them questions about their drinking, with the goal of motivating them to make changes. The counselor called them a second time two weeks later.

Three months later, the study found, patients who'd received phone counseling had cut down on their drinking, but to no greater extent than those who had received no counseling.

The counseling group did, however, report fewer instances of impaired driving.

"We sought a 'teachable moment' outside the emergency department while injury was still fresh in the patient's mind," Dr. Michael J. Mello, Emergency and Internal Medicine at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said in a statement.

"Injury from alcohol use has already been identified as a motivator for change in risky drinkers," he added. "Telephone intervention several days after hospital discharge seems to motivate some of the riskiest drinkers to reduce their drinking and driving."

But whether ER screening and counseling can make a difference in people's overall drinking is still unclear. In a separate study published in the same journal, researchers at Yale University found that for nearly 500 heavy drinkers seen in their ER, a brief counseling session was no more effective than standard care at reducing drinking.

About half of the patients received the counseling session while the rest were advised to cut down on their drinking and given written information on various risky behaviors. Over the next year, both groups cut back on their drinking somewhat, with similar improvements seen in each.

The results point to a need to develop more effective ways to reach problem drinkers in the ER, according to the researchers.

"Because emergency physicians see the tragic consequences of drunk-driving first-hand, we also have the opportunity to educate and motivate our patients to modify their risky behavior," Mello said.

"It is essential that we continue to develop additional models for delivering the health and safety messages to patients about the dangers of drinking and driving."

SOURCE: Annals of Emergency Medicine, online April 22, 2008.

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