Journal of Addiction Research & Therapy
Open Access

Review Article

Risk/Benefit Discussion of Alcohol Use Disorder Medications: Behavioral Economic Considerations and General Recommendations

¹Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

²Department of Pharmacy Practice, Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences; Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA

*Corresponding Author:

Teofilo Enrique Matos Santana
Yale New Haven Hospital
New Haven, USA
Tel: 475-227-6646
E-mail: Teofilo.matossantana@yale.edu

Received date: February 08, 2017; Accepted date: March 24, 2017; Published date: March 31, 2017

Citation: Santana TEM, Greenwald M, Rosen MI (2017) Risk/Benefit Discussion of Alcohol Use Disorder Medications: Behavioral Economic Considerations and General Recommendations. J Addict Res Ther 8:315. doi:10.4172/2155-6105.1000315

Copyright: © 2017 Santana TEM, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Background: Despite the development of several relatively safe and effective medications to treat alcohol use disorder (AUD), underutilization of these medications continues to be a challenge. With other factors, judgments about medications’ risks and benefits can influence prescribers’ practices and patients’ acceptance of these medications. Objective: Describe how behavioral economic principles and presentation of risks/benefits of AUD medications can impact these medications’ utilization and suggest guidelines for how prescribers should describe these medications to patients. Methods: Literature selected by the authors was used in this commentary and formulation of guidelines. Results: Behavioral economic principles relevant to judging risks and benefits of AUD medications include salience, recency, the halo effect, narrative thinking, avoiding cognitive dissonance, and patients’ interoceptive effects. Benefits of reduced alcohol use may be too abstract without elaboration. Medications are more likely to be taken by patients who envision their benefits as salient, prompt, and consistent with other ideas they have about their alcohol use and/or tailored to their psychological state. Explaining risks and benefits using established quantitative and qualitative terms has predictable effects on patients’ perceptions. Risk/benefit discussion should be bi-directional between patient and provider, personalized to issues valued by each patient, and tailored to the individual’s alcoholinduced state. We propose methods to improve information transfer and reduce biased decision making. Conclusion: Whether and how a risk/benefit discussion of AUD medications is conducted can influence utilization of these medications.

Keywords