SBIRT Screening Tool (Pre-Screen)

What is the SBIRT Screening Tool (Pre-Screen)?

The SBIRT Screening Tool (Pre-Screen) is based on the Brief Health Screen, which is used to quickly identify patients who may be at risk for substance use disorders and require further screening. This screening tool was developed by the Department of Family Medicine at Oregon Health and Science University as part of the Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) healthcare program, which seeks to provide timely and early interventions and the necessary treatment to those who may be at risk of alcohol abuse disorder and substance abuse disorder.

What is the goal of an SBIRT Screening Tool (Pre-Screen)?

This pre-screen tool is one of the many standardized screening tools of the SBIRT program. The pre-screening process rules out adult patients who are at low or no risk using pre-screening questions for alcohol and drugs. Those who screen positive on the pre-screen then receive a more comprehensive screening tool like the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) or the Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST-10).

This tool will allow a healthcare professional to examine so they can identify risky substance use behaviors that the patient might have.

How is the tool answered, and how are the results interpreted?

This screening tool has four questions about alcohol consumption, drug use, and about their mood.

The tool isn't scored, but if a patient answers the alcohol or drug-related questions with "1 or more," they would need to receive either a full drug or alcohol screen. The patients who answer "yes" in the mood part about feeling bothered by little interest and feeling down or depressed for two weeks would be recommended to go through a full depression screen. Other SBIRT screening tools are recommended.

This can even be used as part of mental health services administration because patients might potentially be resorting to alcohol or substance use to try and cope with their mental health issues.

How to use our SBIRT Screening Tool (Pre-Screen) template

Now that you know what this pre-screening SBIRT tool is all about, we'd like you to know that we created a template you can download for free and use for your practice!

It's also easy to use because only four questions need answers written by a person. We made the PDF file interactable by adding radio buttons and fillable text fields so it could be issued and answered digitally.

We also added a notes box so you can discuss other findings, like specific information as to why they drank more than 4 or 5 or used drugs if you manage to get such information from patients. You can even outline your next steps there.

How this screening tool benefits healthcare professionals

It helps healthcare professionals know who is relapsing

If the person answering this was someone who is supposed to be recovering from alcohol or substance use, this tool has the chance to detect who is relapsing, provided they are being honest with answering this pre-screen tool.

By knowing if a patient is relapsing, they can assess them further to see if they really are a patient showing risky substance use behaviors again. If they're able to confirm the relapse, they can develop measures to rehabilitate them again.

This can help them plan early interventions

If a person is not a recovering addict or alcoholic but participates in the occasional libation or takes drugs every now and then, healthcare professionals can come up with early interventions to prevent this person from developing alcohol or substance use disorder, or both.