[Alcohol-related admissions to a district hospital]

Abstract

This is a retrospective study of alcohol-related admittances to the medical department of Molde District Hospital. All cases with certain diagnoses where alcohol is mentioned as a possible cause were recorded, and compared with a reference group of matched, non-alcohol-related cases. During the period 1980-86, 228 patients were admitted 350 times to the medical wards of the hospital. These patients had a significantly higher number of admittances than the reference patients, both to the medical ward and to other wards. They also had a higher frequency of emergency admittances. The average age of patients admitted for alcohol-related causes was much lower than that of the general patient population. The relative number of recorded alcohol-related admittances to the medical ward increased over the seven year period, from 3.8 to 5.5% for men and from 0.7 to 1.6% for women.