Telecounseling in Rural Areas for Alcohol Problems

The prevalence of alcohol problems is roughly equal in urban and rural communities. In rural areas, however, treatment options for people with problem drinking tend to be limited at best. One way to reach rural populations is to deliver alcohol counseling services via telephone or interactive televideo links, called telecounseling in this paper. Telecounseling can overcome not only the geographic barriers to treatment, but also concerns with confidentiality and stigma, which may be particularly salient in small rural communities. This approach to service delivery may be particularly important in areas with large rural and frontier regions. This paper reports on current use of common long-distance methodologies, their strengths and limitations. (C) 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.