SBIRT addiction assignment: local data and real referrals

This brief is unusual in that it is already the marking rubric. Every heading names a countable deliverable, and the quantities are explicit: statistics from **your community**, one scholarly reference not assigned in the course to describe the problem, at least one more not assigned in the course to describe SBIRT, the specific steps and questions the model uses, at least one video described, at least two named community resources, a summary of findings, and a discussion of SBIRT in nursing practice. Nine things. Before writing a word, turn the headings into that list and tick it at the end, because almost every mark lost on this assignment is a listed item that was never produced rather than a listed item produced badly. The structure is given to you; the only way to lose it is to write around it.

The requirement that most often fails is the first one, and the brief anticipates it by supplying an example. *Specific statistics from your community* means a city or county figure, and the tobacco illustration is there because papers reliably arrive quoting a national prevalence rate instead. That requirement should invert your workflow. Rather than choosing an addiction and then hunting for local numbers, look first at what your county actually publishes — county health rankings, the state behavioral risk factor survey, your local health department's community health needs assessment — and choose the problem the data can support. Adult binge drinking, adult smoking and drug overdose mortality are usually reported at county level; more specific substances often are not, and the paper cannot be rescued once the topic is fixed. Confirm the figure exists before committing, because an introduction that cannot open on a local number undermines every section that follows it.

*Identify specific steps and questions that are used* is the clause that separates a real paper from a summary of what the acronym stands for. Screening means a named validated instrument with items you can quote: the three-item AUDIT-C or the full ten-item AUDIT for alcohol, the DAST-10 for other drugs, the single-question screen for either. Say what the scores mean, because the threshold is what routes a patient to a brief intervention rather than to a referral, and that routing is the whole logic of the model. The brief intervention itself is a short motivational conversation, typically five to fifteen minutes, in which feedback is offered and the decision stays with the patient. Naming the instrument and its cut-offs is concrete in the way this section is asking for. Quote the items themselves where you can, since a reader can verify a quoted question and cannot verify a claim that questions were asked.

Two smaller requirements get skipped so often they are worth calling out separately. The first is the video: *describe at least one video that demonstrates SBIRT related to the addiction you chose* is a deliverable, not a suggestion, and describing it means saying what happens in it — which stage it demonstrates, what the clinician does, what you noticed — not citing that it exists. The second is the phrase *not assigned in this course*, which appears twice. It is a checkable constraint on both scholarly references, and a marker who set the reading list can see at a glance whether it was honoured. Neither of these is hard; both are binary. Losing marks on either is a reading failure rather than a knowledge failure, which is the most annoying kind to lose. Both are checked in seconds and neither depends on how well you understand addiction, which is what makes losing marks on them so expensive.

The closing section asks for the use of SBIRT in nursing practice, and it rewards specifics about where nurses actually run it: emergency departments, primary care, prenatal visits, and admission assessments on medical-surgical units, where a screen can be attached to an intake already happening. The strongest close notes that SBIRT is a reimbursable service with its own billing codes, because that answers the implicit question of whether it is sustainable rather than aspirational. It is also honest to say which part fails in practice: the referral to treatment is the weakest link, since screening identifies more people than local capacity absorbs. That is exactly what your two named community resources are for, so connect them to this section instead of leaving them stranded earlier in the paper. Naming the gap is not pessimism; it is the difference between describing a model and assessing whether it can work where you are.