Alcohol Dependence Significantly Increases Hospital Mortality

A new study reveals that alcohol dependent (AD) hospital patients die about 7.6 years earlier on average than those without a history of alcohol addiction.

Researchers at the University of Bonn (Germany) and Royal Derby Hospital (United Kingdom) conducted a long-term observational study to evaluate patient data from seven general hospitals in Manchester (United Kingdom) over 12.5 years. In all, the researchers analyzed physical illness in 23,371 hospital patients with AD, and compared them with those of a control group of 233,710 randomly selected patients without AD who were group-matched for age and gender, regardless of primary admission diagnosis or specialized treatments.

The results showed that 27 physical illnesses occurred more often in patients with AD; physical co-morbidities included liver and pancreatic, respiratory, neurological, circulatory, renal, upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract, and peripheral vascular diseases. In contrast, coronary heart related diseases, diverticular disease, and cataracts were less frequent in those with AD than in controls. Hospital-based mortality rates were 20.4% in the AD sample, compared to 8.3% in the controls. The study was published early online on April 1, 2015, in European Psychiatry.

“Patients with addiction problems are often admitted to hospitals as emergency cases. At the time of diagnosis, priority is then given to the acute symptoms; this may contribute to the fact that not all physical illnesses are recorded,” said study coauthor Dieter Schoepf, MD, of the department of psychiatry and psychotherapy at University of Bonn Hospital. “Reduced pain sensations and perception disorders of addicted persons can also cause certain conditions to not be detected by doctors.”

“During the observation period, approximately one out of five hospital patients with alcoholism died in one of the hospitals, while only one out of twelve patients in the control group died,” added study coauthor Prof. Reinhard Heun, MD, of Royal Derby Hospital. “Through diligent screening and early treatment of concomitant mental and physical illnesses, it should be possible to significantly increase the life expectancy of alcoholic patients.”

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University of Bonn
Royal Derby Hospital