[Alcoholic problem among homeless people around Shibuya Station].
It has been reported that the general public has the impression that many of the homeless people have alcoholic problems, and that these problems make their life problems worse. While there has been some research on this subject, most of them focus on the people who use public or private services. So, this study was conducted to investigate the alcoholic problems focused on the homeless people who were around Shibuya station. An investigation covering the questions about their job, company, sleeping style, amount of alcohol taken per day, CAGE and blood examination was compiled using questionnaires. The results were compared with people who are not homeless people and among homeless people. There were forty-nine homeless people who responded to the questionnaire and 34 homeless people who responded to the blood examination. The mean age of the homeless people was 53.1 years and no significant difference was seen between the homeless and the control. About 46% of the homeless reported that they do not drink. Sixteen per cent of the homeless respondents answered positively to the CAGE, No difference was found in having past history of liver dysfunction and in blood examination between them. There was a tendency that the amount of alcohol increases when the homeless have company. The level of gamma GTP increased significantly according to the amount of alcohol (p < 0.05). This study can be valued because of the attempt to focus not on the homeless who use services but on the homeless who stayed in the city. But the number of the targeted homeless people was small and there was selection bias that is not easy to be excluded in this type of research. Further studies on the impact of alcohol etc. should be developed to improve their lives.
Department of Health Service Administration, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, Japan.
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Tanimoto
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Minowa
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006703:Ill-Housed Persons; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014041:Tokyo / Q000453:epidemiology