The impact of alcohol use in patients attended in the emergency room of a university general hospital

Background: The abusive alcoholic beverage use is one of significant the provoking factors of external causes in patients taken care of in the emergency. Objectives: To describe the patterns of alcohol use among patients attended at the Emergency Department and to investigate the association of patterns of alcohol use and the reasons for seeking the emergency health care. Methods: It is a transversal study. A sample was made of 418 patients who seek treatment at the emergency room of Federal University of Uberlandia (HCUFU/MG), from October 2003 through March 2004. The procedures consisted of gathering some socio demographic figures, general figures about the main reasons to search for health service and a tracing questionnaire for alcohol abuse developed by World Health Organization, the AUDIT - The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test. Results: The prevalence of harmful alcohol use among the sample was 36.2% (N = 151). Higher rates of alcohol abuse were found among run over victims (60%), (N = 9), victims of motor accidents (40%), (N = 40), victims of general accidents (44%), (N = 51), and were related to being male, single, and aged 18 to 44. The analysis of logistic regression indicated that, though harmful alcohol use is associated with all trauma groups investigated, this relation was particularly significant for run over victims (OR = 1,05 IC 95%: 1,01-1,09) and victims of general accidents (OR = 1,03 IC 95%:1,00-1,05). Discussion: Alcohol consumption is high among patients seen at emergency rooms due motor vehicle and other kinds of accidents, particularly for run over victims. In this sense it is of paramount importance to implement preventive measures to decrease individual and social costs that alcohol consumption imposes to its users.