Influence of alcohol use on mortality and expenditure during hospital admission: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

ObjectivesThis study was designed to investigate the effect of alcohol intoxication on clinical presentation of hospitalised adult trauma patients at a Level I trauma centre using propensity score matching.DesignCross-sectional study.SettingTaiwan.ParticipantsDetailed data of 929 hospitalised adult trauma patients with alcohol intoxication, aged 20–65 years, and 10 104 corresponding patients without alcohol intoxication were retrieved from the Trauma Registry System between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2014. Alcohol intoxication was defined as a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) ≥50 mg/dL.Main outcome measuresIn-hospital mortality and expenditure.ResultsPatients with alcohol intoxication presented with significantly higher short-term mortality (OR: 3.0, 95% CI 2.0 to 4.4; p<0.001) than patients without alcohol intoxication. However, on comparison with propensity score-matched patients with respect to sex, age, comorbidity, Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), injury region based on Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) and Injury Severity Score (ISS), alcohol intoxication did not significantly influence mortality (OR: 0.8, 95% CI 0.5 to 1.4; p=0.563). This implied that the higher mortality of alcohol-intoxicated patients was attributable to patient characteristics such as a higher injury severity rather than alcohol intoxication. Even on comparison with sex-matched, age-matched and comorbidity-matched patients without alcohol intoxication, patients with alcohol intoxication still had significantly higher total expenditure (17.4% higher), cost of operation (40.3% higher), cost of examination (52.8% higher) and cost of pharmaceuticals (38.3% higher).ConclusionsThe associated higher mortality of adult trauma patients with alcohol intoxication was completely attributable to other patient characteristics and associated injury severity rather than the effects of alcohol. However, patients with alcohol intoxication incurred significantly higher expenditure than patients without alcohol intoxication, even on comparison with sex-matched, age-matched and comorbidity-matched patients without alcohol intoxication.

Alcohol Related Facial Injuries

“…In this study, patients were predominantly male of younger age .This agrees with a study by Peng S-H, et al [20] .The gender distribution showed an overall male to female ratio of 4:1 and those in the age group mostly affected were between 29 and 38 years of age.…”

Prevalence of alcohol and other drug use in patients presenting to hospital for fall-related injuries: a systematic review

“…There were 100 records that reported on the prevalence of AOD involvement in injury events. Of the 100 records that reported on all causes of injury (excluding transport events), 30 studies reported on the prevalence of AOD involvement in patients presenting to hospital after falls 24–52. One of these studies was excluded, since it reported exclusively on patients who denied consuming alcohol in the past year 38.…”

The impact of alcohol intoxication on early Glasgow Coma Scale-Pupil reactivity score in patients with traumatic brain injury: A prospective observational study

“…[ 11 ] and Peng et al . [ 12 ] showed that a high percentage of males were intoxicated, 66.4% and 88.4%, respectively, in their studies.…”

“…However, studies by Peng et al . [ 12 ] and Demetriades et al . [ 19 ] showed a high AIS score for intoxicated patients.…”