Study Finds Benefits of Telehealth in Treating Alcohol Use Disorder

Telehealth may be more effective than in-person treatment for alcohol use disorder, a new study suggests.

Veterans Administration researchers analyzed data gathered from March 2020 to February 2021 from more than 138,000 patients diagnosed with alcohol use disorder. They found patients who received treatment through telehealth had more psychotherapy visits and took medication to treat their disorder for longer compared with patients who received in-person therapy sessions, HealthDay reports.

The findings are “particularly important in the current context, as the United States debates whether to sustain or revoke pandemic-era policies that decreased barriers to telehealth,” the researchers wrote in the journal Alcohol, Clinical and Experimental Research.

The researchers found that during the study period, 53% of patients had at least one video visit, 38% had at least one telephone visit but no video visits and 9% had only in-person visits. Black patients were less likely to receive video telehealth treatment and were more likely to have in-person therapy. This highlights “important disparities in alcohol use disorder telehealth use,” researchers said.