title: Mortality in alcoholic patients given inpatient treatment.
abstract: Data on mortality during a 48-month follow-up period in a group of 1410 alcoholics who had received inpatient treatment were evaluated. In 1266 patients known to be either living or deceased the death rate was 7.6%. The percentage of deceased subjects was highest in the group over 50 years of age. The mortality rate was higher for men (9.8%) than for women (4.8%); for those with more than one divorce (16.8%); for those who were not fit for work (18.1%) or were retired at the start of the treatment (43.3%); who were employed in the alcohol business (21.7%); who had reduced their alcohol consumption before treatment (13.4%); who were unemployed 6 months after discharge (12.4%). The mortality rate was higher for those with high scores on a scale assessing calmness in a personality inventory (7.9%) and low scores on a questionnaire assessing motivation (10.9%) and insight into the need of change (12.4%). Alcohol-related illness before the index treatment played an important role: the mortality rate was higher for those who had had Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (40%), delirium tremens (15.3%), pancreatitis (13.9%) or cardiomyopathy (14.1%). The mortality rate was higher for treatment dropouts (12.9%) and for those who regularly or occasionally took sleeping pills (28.5%), psychoactive drugs (15.1%) or other drugs (11.5%) during treatment. In the follow-up periods substance use had a great effect on mortality. The mortality rate for those patients who still abstained from alcohol after 6 months (4.4%) was only a third of that for the patients who had relapsed (12.4%).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry, Clinical Institute, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Feuerlein
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Küfner
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Flohrschütz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000401:mortality* / Q000534:rehabilitation; D002423:Cause of Death; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012307:Risk Factors; D016320:Substance Abuse Treatment Centers; D015996:Survival Rate; D016896:Treatment Outcome