• Jané-Llopis E, Anderson P, Piazza M, et al Implementing primary healthcare-based measurement, advice and treatment for heavy drinking and comorbid depression at the municipal level in three Latin American countries: final protocol for a quasiexperimental study (SCALA study) BMJ Open 2020;10:e038226. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-038226

• Anderson, P., O'Donnell, A., Kaner, E., Gual, A., Schulte, B., Gómez, A. P., ... & Rehm, J. (2017). Scaling-up primary health care-based prevention and management of heavy drinking at the municipal level in middle-income countries in Latin America: Background and protocol for a three-country quasi-experimental study.F1000Research, 6.

• SCALA Deliverable report D3.1 - SCALA Protocol. 2019

• SCALA Deliverable report D3.2 - Municipal Action Plans. 2019

• SCALA Deliverable report D6.1 - SCALA Engagement, Communication,Dissemination and Exploitation (ECDE) Plan. 2019

SCALA Workshop, INEBRIA conference, Lübeck, September 26th, 2019

• INEBRIA SCALA INTRO - Scale up of prevention and management of alcohol use disorders and comorbid depression in Latin America.
• Amy O'Donnell - Development of locally tailored intervention packages to address heavy drinking,depression and alcohol health literacy.
• Adriana Solovei - Assessing costs of SBI in Latin America .
• Jacob Manthey - Reducing disease burden with alcohol brief interventions in Columbia, Mexico and Peru: first results from a modelling study .
• Peter Anderson On behalf of all Scientists in the SCALA Project Consortium - Scaleup of prevention and management of alcohol use disorders and comorbid depression in Latin America, Design and Baseline Results.

Other 2019 presentations

• Amy O'Donnell - Closing the evidence to practice gap for alcohol identification and brief advice in healthcare: the journey so far and the challenge ahead.< (Faculty of Public Health and Public Health England Alcohol Learning Event, Nottingham 29 April 2019)

SCALA Workshop, INEBRIA conference, Santiago de Chile, 27-28 September 2018

• Antoni Gual, Jürgen Rehm and Augusto Pérez present the SCALA Project at a Group Session Workshop as part of the INEBRIA Conference, 27 Sept 2018.

Other 2018 presentations

• Bernd Schulte - Scale-up of Prevention and Management of Alcohol Use Disorder in Latin America - The SCALA project (Nordic Implementation Conference, 28-29 May 2018)

The Peruvian, Colombian and Mexican partners of SCALA have each developed tailored audiovisual communication material to raise awareness of the risks of alcohol-related harms in the intervention sites involving municipal action plans. These are all in Spanish and can be seen in the Spanish 'outputs' page under the heading 'Material Audiovisual'


The SCALA training videos are designed to model the screening and brief intervention approach of the SCALA programme for the management of alcohol problems and co-morbid depression in primary care. The videos are all in Latin American Spanish

Videos for standard form training:

SCALA Video 1a - Screening Pedro: +alcohol, - depression +alcohol, - depresión




SCALA Video 1b - Brief intervention - Pedro: +alcohol, - depression


SCALA Video 2a - Screening - Paola: +alcohol, + depression


SCALA Video 2b - Brief intervention - Paola: +alcohol, + depression


SCALA Video 3 - Feedback and referral - Ana-María: +alcohol, ++ depression



Videos for short form training:

SCALA Video A (short form) - Screening negative - Sofia: - alcohol


SCALA Video B (short form) - Screening and brief advice - Juan: + alcohol, -depression


SCALA Video C - Javier: patient resists remission/reference - alcohol++

Study arms 1, 2 & 3 (short form)

Protocol: Scale-Up of Prevention and Management of Alcohol Use Disorders and Comorbid Depression. Short form. EN.

Information sheet: Baseline Measurement Period. Short form. EN.

A Guide for Health Care Professionals: Screening and Intervention for Alcohol Use and Depression. Short form. EN.

Study arm 4 (standard form - collapsed with arm 3 in Nov 2020)

Protocol: Scale-Up of Prevention and Management of Alcohol Use Disorders and Comorbid Depression. Standard form. EN.

Information sheet: Baseline Measurement Period. Standard form. EN.

A Guide for Health Care Professionals: Screening and Intervention for Alcohol Use and Depression. Standard form. EN.

Care pathways

Simplified Care Pathway. Short form - Arms 123. EN.

Simplified Care Pathway. Standard form - Arm 4. EN.

Study arms 1 (control)

Protocol: Scale-Up of Prevention and Management of Alcohol Use Disorders and Comorbid Depression. Short form. EN.

A Guide for Health Care Professionals: Screening and Intervention for Alcohol Use and Depression. Short form. EN.

Study arms 2 (control with training) & 3 (short form programme)

Patient alcohol leaflet. Short and long form. EN.

Patient Brief Advice Leaflet. Short form. EN.

Patient depression leaflet. Short and long form. EN.

Study arm 4 (standard form programme - collapsed with arm 3 in Nov 2020)

Patient alcohol leaflet. Short and standard form. EN.

Patient Brief Advice Leaflet. Standard form. EN.

Patient depression leaflet. Short and standard form. EN

Study arms 1, 2 & 3 (short form)

Tally Sheets Cover Form. EN.

Very Short Tally Sheet. EN.

PHC Provider questionnaire. EN.

Drop out documentation. EN.

Study arm 4 (standard form - collapsed with arm 3 in Nov 2020)

Tally Sheets Cover Form. EN.

Short Tally Sheet. EN.

PHC Provider questionnaire. EN.

Drop out documentation. EN.

Study arms 1 (control)

Very Short Tally Sheet. EN.

Provided extended Tally Sheet. EN.

Patient consent to further questions. EN.

Tally Sheets Cover Form. EN.

Drop out documentation. EN.

PHC Provider questionnaire 3 month follow up EN.

PHC Provider questionnaire 13 month follow up. EN.

Patient questionnaire 3 months and 13 months. EN.

PHCC cost assessment 12 months. EN.

Study arm 2 (Control with training)

Very Short Tally Sheet. EN.

Provided extended Tally Sheet. EN.

Patient consent to further questions. EN.

Tally Sheets Cover Form. EN.

Drop out documentation. EN.

PHC Provider questionnaire 3 month follow up EN.

PHC Provider questionnaire 13 month follow up. EN.

Patient questionnaire 3 months and 13 months. EN.

PHCC cost assessment 12 months. EN.

Provider training documentation. Training and Booster. EN.

Provider Training questionnaire Training1. EN.

Provider Training questionnaire Booster 2. EN.

Study arms 3 (Short form programme)

Very Short Tally Sheet. EN.

Provided extended Tally Sheet. EN.

Patient consent to further questions. EN.

PHC Provider questionnaire 3 month follow up EN.

PHC Provider questionnaire 13 month follow up. EN.

Patient questionnaire 3 months and 13 months. EN.

PHCC cost assessment 12 months. EN.

Provider training documentation. Training and Booster. EN.

Provider Training questionnaire Training 1. EN.

Provider Training questionnaire Booster 2. EN.

Provider questionnaire 3 month follow up. EN.

Provider questionnaire 13 month follow up. EN.

Study arm 4 (Standard length programme - collapsed with arm 3 in Nov 2020)

Provided extended Tally Sheet. EN.

Patient consent to further questions. EN.

PHC Provider questionnaire 3 month follow up EN.

PHC Provider questionnaire 13 month follow up. EN.

Patient questionnaire 3 months and 13 months. EN.

PHCC cost assessment 12 months. EN.

Provider training documentation. Training and Booster. EN.

Provider Training questionnaire Booster 2. EN.

Short Tally Sheet. EN.

Provider questionnaire 3 month follow up. Standard version. EN

Provider Training questionnaire Training1. Standard version. EN

Provider Training questionnaire Training2. Standard version. EN

Provider Training questionnaire Booster. EN

Municipality – Data collection Sheet. [Ins1]

Primary Health Care Center - Data Collection Sheet. [Ins2]

Primary Health Care Provider – Contact Documentation. [Ins3]

As well as collapsing arms 3 and 4 following evidence of the longer intervention not performing better than the shorter one, a second implementation stage of 6 months (phase 2) started in December 2020 running to May 2021 to recuperate data lost through COVID disruption - given the mental strain put on populations at this time, several of the instruments and clinical materials have been adjusted for this stage to give a greater emphasis to depression screening and support delivery in the intervention package by screening all patients visiting PHC for depression using the PHQ2 instrument (as opposed to only patients identified as heavy drinkers). This necessitated changes to the clinical care pathway, to the short and extended tally sheets, and to the healthcare professional booklet:

Phase 2 clinical materials

• Revised Clinical Protocol
• Healthcare Professionals booklet

Phase 2 instruments

• Overview of Phase 2 instruments
• Extended Tally Sheet
• Short Tally Sheet

In response to the physical lockdown of PHC units, the SCALA partners in Peru (UPCH) developed online versions of the training and intervention package for future implementation. The telemedicine package uses responsive online versions of the key clinical materials that are accessible and viewable via smartphone as well as web browser (in Spanish):

• Short alcohol leaflet for patients (Mat11)
• Patient alcohol leaflet(Mat10)
• Depression leaflet (Mat9)

SCALA training manual. Short version. EN

SCALA Training package Session 1. Short version. EN.

SCALA Training package. Booster session. Short version. EN.

SCALA training manual. Standard version. EN.

SCALA Training package Session 1. Standard version. EN.

SCALA Training package Session 2. Standard version. EN..

SCALA Training package. Booster session. Standard version. EN.