Abstract
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the prevalence of alcoholism in patients hospitalized because of somatic disorders, and to analyse morbidity, mortality, and causes of death in those alcoholics.
DESIGN
Inception cohort, 7-year follow-up.
SETTING
Primary and secondary care clinics at a community hospital in Göteborg, Sweden.
PATIENTS AND CONTROLS
A convenience sample of all 205 men hospitalized at a medical, surgical, and orthopaedic clinic at a random time-point. The diagnosis of alcoholism was stated or rejected by means of structured interviews about drinking habits and by scrutiny of records from the hospital, psychiatric clinics, and social authorities. In the study of morbidity pattern and mortality in the alcoholics (n = 52), age-matched, non-alcoholic controls were recruited from the same sample.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Prevalence of alcoholism; distribution of somatic disorders as cause of hospitalization at inclusion; mortality and risk ratio of death using the death hazard function of the groups compared with that of men of the same age-distribution in the Swedish population; causes of death during a 7-year follow-up.
MAIN RESULTS
Fifty-two of the 205 hospitalized men (25%) were alcoholics and 16 of these men (31%) were treated for an alcohol-related disorder. During follow-up, the mortality rate was about 50% both in the alcoholic and in the control groups. The risk of death ratio was 5.0 [95% confidence interval (CI), 2.9 to 8.3] in the alcoholics and 3.9 (95% CI, 2.2 to 6.4) in the controls. Death from trauma, intoxication, and liver failure occurred exclusively in the alcoholics and accounted for almost one-third of the deaths after discharge.
CONCLUSIONS
Alcoholism was found in every fourth male somatic inpatient, and an alcohol-related disorder was the cause of hospitalization in one-third of these men. The long-term prognosis did not differ from that in non-alcoholic patients. In the treatment of alcoholics with somatic disorders, it is important to take measures against alcoholism as well.
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