Addiction
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To quantify the relationship between acute alcohol consumption and risk of injury, in the context of other potential confounding factors (i.e. usual alcohol intake, risk-taking behaviour and substance use-defined as prescription/over-the-counter medication or illicit substances), using three separate measures of alcohol consumption. ⋯ In this study, acute alcohol consumption significantly increased the risk of injury, even when situational and other risk factors were considered. However, the relationship between alcohol and injury appears confounded by usual drinking patterns, risk-taking behaviour and substance use. Therefore, these variables should be considered in any analysis of the alcohol-injury relationship, and also considered when developing public health strategies to reduce alcohol-related injury. Further research is required to elucidate the nature of this relationship, and to identify the effect of risk-taking and substance use on different types of injuries (e.g. mechanism of injury; body region injured) and injury severity. The stability of the models and the consistency of the findings across all measures of alcohol used support claims for the validity of the observed effects.
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To identify in-patient emergency admissions to acute hospitals of residents from a health board region in the Republic of Ireland with an acute alcohol intoxication diagnosis; to profile the admissions and to assess whether the increase in alcohol consumption in Ireland has been mirrored by an increase in alcohol related emergency admissions over the same time period. ⋯ This study shows that alcohol intoxication accounted for a substantial number of emergency in-patient admissions to acute hospitals in one health board region in Ireland and that the age standardized recorded acute alcohol related emergency admission rate increased significantly over the 5-year period, 1997-2001. This increase mirrored the national increase in alcohol consumption over the same time period.