Abstract
Emergency Department (ED) patients show a high prevalence of hazardous alcohol consumption
and smoking. The objective of this study was to determine if socioeconomic factors
and smoking status help to optimize screening for hazardous alcohol consumption (HAC)
in patients with minor trauma. A survey was conducted in an ED in an inner-city university
hospital. A total of 2562 patients with minor trauma were screened for HAC (≥ 8 points
in men and ≥ 5 points in women on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test),
smoking status, and socioeconomic factors. The median age of participants was 32 years,
with 62.1% being male. A total of 84.2% of patients had an Injury Severity Score of
1, indicating minor trauma. Overall, 23.5% of patients showed a pattern of HAC, whereas
46.2% were current smokers. Compared to patients without HAC, those with HAC were
characterized by lower incomes, no partnership, living in a single-household, and
being unemployed. The strongest discriminative variable for HAC for patients aged
≤ 53 years was smoking status. Gender differences played a role only in patients older
than 53 years. Although socioeconomic factors showed a non-equal distribution in patients
with respectively without HAC, solely age, gender, and smoking status may provide
a successful stratification for alcohol screening and intervention in these patients.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 08, 2008
Accepted:
October 30,
2007
Received in revised form:
September 10,
2007
Received:
November 4,
2006
Footnotes
This study was sponsored by the German Ministry of Health (BMGS 217-43794-5/5).
Identification
Copyright
© 2010 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
