Participants
terminally ill, trauma
INFECTIOUS DISEASES, DISORDER
In 2011–2012, participants were recruited on 13 wards in four medical departments at the University Medicine Hospital Greifswald in Germany: internal medicine, general surgery, trauma surgery and ear-nose-throat. Intensive care units were excluded. All consecutively admitted patients aged 18–64 years, were approached by a research assistant and asked to respond to an electronic self-administrative lifestyle screening. Patients cognitively or physically incapable or terminally ill, with highly infectious diseases, discharged or transferred outside the study area within the first 24 h, already recruited previously, with insufficient German language skills, or employed at the conducting research institute were excluded. Those study participants who screened positive for at-risk alcohol use, i.e. exceeding values of ≥ 4 for women and ≥ 5 for men on the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT)-Consumption [Among 10,593 patients aged 18–64 years who had been admitted to the participating wards, 6809 were eligible for screening, and 6251 (92%) completed the screening. Of the 1,187 patients eligible for trial participation, 961 (81%) received their allocated intervention. One participant with missing baseline covariate data was excluded from analysis. The final sample for analysis included 960 patients with at-risk alcohol use (Fig. Participant flow stratified by study group