Alcohol and alcoholism : international journal of the Medical Council on Alcoholism
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Comparative Study
Self-reported alcohol use among Dutch emergency room patients: variations in prevalence rates owing to methodological differences.
This study compared different methods of assessing self-reported alcohol use among emergency room patients in order to explain the variations in reported prevalence rates. ⋯ Future studies using patient self-report among emergency room samples should consider carefully the influence of sample selection bias. The combination of the research staff handing out the questionnaire and the emergency room staff giving their judgement on the patient's alcohol use seems to be a useful method.
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Alcohol consumption is often under-reported in patients admitted to general hospitals with acute illness. For alcohol-dependent individuals hospital admission results in an enforced period of abstinence with potential alcohol withdrawal symptoms, and possible life threatening complications. Early detection of alcohol use is therefore beneficial to patients and health services. The purpose of this study was to investigate the performance of the alcohol use disorders identification test (AUDIT) questionnaire in the acute medical setting, and the effect of combining routine biological markers-glutamyltransferase, alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, and mean corpuscular volume (MCV) on its performance in the early identification of in-patients with alcohol use disorders and at risk of developing symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. ⋯ These findings confirm that AUDIT is a useful alcohol screen in general medical settings and that its ability to correctly predict which patients will experience alcohol withdrawal is increased when used in combination with biological markers.