Journal of general internal medicine
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Comparative Study
Utilization of hospital resources by alcoholic and nonalcoholic patients: a prospective study.
To measure any difference in the utilization of hospital resources between alcoholic patients and nonalcoholic patients (controls) in a department of internal medicine. ⋯ The authors' results suggest that alcoholics do not use more hospital resources per admission than do nonalcoholics. Moreover, alcoholics tend to use less frequently some procedures, such as the ICU, electrocardiography, and x-ray examinations. Several hypotheses are developed to explain these results in relation to those of previous studies, which showed more use of medical care by alcoholics than by nonalcoholics.