Correction: Messina et al. Knowledge and Practice towards Alcohol Consumption in a Sample of University Students. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 9528.

Gemma Battagliese was not included as an author in the original publication [...].

Behavioral dysregulations by chronic alcohol abuse. Motivational enhancement therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy outcomes.

Patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD) do not manifest homogeneous clinical symptoms. Various studies described both cognitive impairments and psychiatric disorders among people with AUD. This disorder is one of the most frequent mental disorders in developed countries, due to excessive alcohol consumption. Alcohol is toxic as it increases the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and can cause dependence. This causes negative effects on brain development and cognitive functions that affect the individual's work, health, and social life. Current pharmacology treatment for alcohol addiction is based on direct action against the neurotransmitters involved in alcohol dependence. AUD patients without comorbid psychiatric disorders or severe cognitive deficits are defined as "pure alcoholics". To date, poor is known about effective treatments for this typology of AUD patients. Psychotherapy is largely used in resolving many psychiatric disorders, including substance use disorders. Motivational enhancement therapy (MET) and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) are two psychotherapies used to achieve and maintain abstinence in patients affected by substance use disorders. This short review aims to describe two CBT and MET and to present the advantages and disadvantages of these two psychotherapies in the treatment of AUD.

Knowledge and Practice towards Alcohol Consumption in a Sample of University Students.

Objective: Alcohol affects many human systems and is involved in the pathogenesis of other diseases. Particular attention must be paid to alcohol consumption among young people. It has been shown that 25% of young people's deaths are attributable to alcohol, and around 35 million people aged over 11 had consumed at least one alcoholic beverage in 2015. Study Design: Young people aged 18-24 were the most vulnerable to binge drinking in Italy, and 50.6% of teenagers drunk alcohol. Only a few studies in the literature have investigated those habits in university students. This study aims to examine alcohol use habits in a population of university students in Italy. Methods: Between 2018 and 2019, an anonymous online questionnaire was randomly sent to university students from 17 different universities in a network of research centres to study alcohol use disorders. The survey included socio-demographic information, questions about alcohol use, knowledge about alcohol consumption, and related risks. Used questionnaires were the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test-Consumption (AUDIT-C) and the Drinking Motive Questionnaire-Revised (DMQ-R). Results: the AUDIT-C revealed that 53.3% of students were high-risk drinkers. Regarding binge drinking habits, 13.1% of students admitted to binge drinking behavior at least once a month. In our sample, male students are more likely to be low-risk drinkers than female peers (p < 0.008). Students from northern Italy are more likely to be high-risk drinkers (p = 0.003). Beer (65.9%) and wine (60.9%) were the most consumed alcoholic beverages. The most common places to drink alcohol were pubs (85.5%). The most likely motivations to drink alcohol were enhancement (40.43%), social (38.39%), coping (15.63%), and social pressure or conformity (5.55%). Only 43.8% of participants reported having attended an educational course on alcohol. Conclusions: University students were not fully aware of the implications of alcohol misuse and will be part of the adult society as critical figures and future leaders. It is imperative to inform students about alcohol consumption risks and investigate the motivations to drink. Stress, anxiety, and social pressure are only a few issues young people are exposed to. Special attention must be paid to young people and their coping strategies that involve substance abuse by using educative, preventive, and motivational approaches.

Treatment of alcohol dependence. Alcohol and homelessness: social point of view.

The phenomenon of homeless people is eliciting a devastating social impact with an estimated prevalence in the USA and in Europe between 5.6% and 13.9%. These persons have a poor quality of life, a limited or no social life. They are often unemployed or work only occasionally. They are at risk for problems with the law and often suffering from addiction to other drugs, psychiatric and other medical diseases. Alcohol is often not the cause of their social status, but only the result of other discomforts thus contributing to their bio-psycho-social degradation. In 2009 the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's Homelessness Assistance Programs and in 2010 the European Consensus Conference on Homelessness discussed about the social rehabilitation of these people, using the concept of case management. In particular, the Standard Case Management was able to improve the housing stability, to reduce the use of drugs and to remove the working barriers. The Assertive Community Treatment was able to improve the housing stability and had a better efficacy for patients suffering from double diagnosis.

Treatment of alcohol dependence. Alcohol and the young: social point of view.

Adolescents are the most vulnerable group for alcohol-related diseases, as starting to drink at a young age is associated with an increased risk of alcohol dependence in adulthood. Young people tend to drink large amounts of alcohol to seek out strong emotions and for reaching fun at all costs through the psychotropic properties of alcohol. The behavioural motivations of this kind of drinking (binge drinking) depend on the lack of awareness of the harmful effects of alcohol, in the rite of social conviviality (a condition for which alcohol is attributed to the function of facilitating the aggregation among young people), in the absence of personal interests, lack of controls and family habits. Actions to be taken to limit or stop harmful alcohol consumption in young people should be based on interventions aimed at delaying the age of first contact with alcoholic beverages through the implementation of educational campaigns aimed at young people, their families and the whole society.

Treatment of alcohol use disorder from a psychological point of view.

The development of a treatment for alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a crucial and complex moment. Indeed, the information gathered by a team of professionals (physicians, psychologists and social workers) (bio-psycho-social model of AUD) interact to choose the most appropriate cure. As for AUD psychological treatment, it is of considerable importance to avoid clinical treatments leading to drop-out for improving the patients quality of life. Psychoanalytic and behavioral techniques were early utilized as psychological treatment of AUD, however, evidence-based approaches as motivational interviewing (MI) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) are recently used in AUD. In this work we review the more effective and appropriate AUD psychological treatments.

Ethylglucuronide in the urine as a marker of alcohol consumption during pregnancy: Comparison with four alcohol screening questionnaires.

Ethyl glucuronide (EtG) is an ethanol metabolite and EtG is used as a biomarker of alcohol drinking. EtG can be detected in the blood and in several biological matrices including urine, hair and nails. Alcohol consumption during pregnancy is a strong risk factor for fetus health so in the recent years different strategies to reveal alcohol use have been planning including the use of screening questionnaires as the AUDIT-C, T-ACE and TWEAK. The present study aims to investigate in pregnant women the specificity and predictive value of the AUDIT-C, T-ACE and TWEAK plus a food diary in use in Sapienza University Hospital compared with the results of urine EtG measurement. Seventy pregnant women were enrolled and examined. Urine samples were provided by pregnant women immediately after the interviews. EtG determinations were performed by Enzyme Immunoassay with a cut-off established at 100ng/mL. Data show that 34.28% of the enrolled pregnant women overcame the EtG cut off. No direct correlation was found between EtG data and the alcohol screening interviews showing lower levels of alcohol consumption, although T-ACE revealed the same at risk percentage. However, a significant concordance was observed with food diary data and T-ACE only in patients with higher EtG urinary concentration. This study provides clinical evidence that the diagnosis of maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy only based on indirect methods, such as questionnaires and food diary, may significantly underestimate alcohol use.