title: Comparison between different methods of detecting patients with excessive consumption of alcohol.
abstract: A study of excessive alcohol consumption was carried out on 2,114 adult somatic outpatients. All patients were evaluated by the following methods: Blood-chemical tests (serum gamma-glutamyltransferase (S-GT), serum aspartate aminotransferase (S-ASAT) and ethanol), patient's and doctor's questionnaires, and analysis of data from psychiatric records, social welfare registers and alcohol ambulatory services. Records from psychiatric clinics detected 48% of the patients. Forty per cent of the alcohol patients had S-GT levels greater than 0.9 mu kat/l. S-ASAT and blood ethanol levels were of little informative value. The doctors recognized excessive consumption (greater than 280 g of ethanol/week). The combination of S-GT and questionnaires to patients and doctors detected 63% of the alcohol patients. Both in epidemiological studies and in clinical practice it seems appropriate to use combinations of different methods to detect patients with underlying alcohol problems.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000201:enzymology; D001219:Aspartate Aminotransferases / Q000097:blood; D004796:Clinical Enzyme Tests; D000431:Ethanol / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012042:Registries; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D005723:gamma-Glutamyltransferase / Q000097:blood
chemical_list: D000431:Ethanol; D005723:gamma-Glutamyltransferase; D001219:Aspartate Aminotransferases