General practitioners recognising alcohol dependence: results of the European Alcoholism in Primary Care (APC) study for Poland

Introduction: Alcohol dependence is one of the most rarely recognised and treated psychiatric disorders in the Polish population. The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of alcohol dependence (AD) as well as the characteristics of alcohol dependent patients presenting themselves to general practitioners (GPs) on an average day. Methods: A total of 2396 patients were assessed by their GPs within an AD diagnosis. In the next step, 1197 patients from the primary group were assessed by independent interviewers using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview questionnaire (CIDI) based on the DSM-IV criteria of alcohol dependence. Results: General practitioners recognised AD during the last 12 months in 4.9% of their patients, whereas CIDI assessment revealed prevalence of AD at 6.3%. The overlap between these two groups was only 12.5%. Patients identified by GPs turned out to be significantly older, more frequently males and with comorbid liver disease than those diagnosed with CIDI. The compiled population of AD patients was characterised by more frequent sleep problems, liver diseases and nicotine dependence in comparison to non-alcoholic subjects. Discussion: The prevalence of alcohol dependence among GP patients is significantly higher than in the general population. Conclusion: General practitioners should be more sensitive to alcohol use problems in females and younger patients who are yet to develop any somatic consequences of drinking. Smoking patients and those suffering from sleep problems should be also considered at risk for alcohol dependence. (C) 2015 Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology. Production and hosting by Elsevier Sp. z o.o. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).