Substance use in the general hospital.
BACKGROUND
People misusing substances are overrepresented in health settings. Substance misuse can also be an underlying factor complicating medical diagnosis and management.


OBJECTIVE
(i) To establish the prevalence of substance misuse in the general hospital inpatient population; and (ii) to examine the relationship between medical diagnosis and substance misuse problem as identified by screening tools.


METHODS
This study adopted a three-step screening approach including a prospective questionnaire survey, interview, and case note review. Subjects included all adult patients admitted to a London teaching hospital over a 1-week period.


RESULTS
Seventy percent completed the questionnaire. Twenty-three percent was currently smoking, 14% was rated positive for alcohol misuse, and 12% positive for drug misuse. Only 65% of patients was screened for smoking, 54% for alcohol, and 9% for other substances.


CONCLUSIONS
People misusing one substance were more likely to be misusing others, hence the importance of screening all patients for all substances. Doctors were screening a small percentage of patients and they identified and intervened with only the severe ones.
Kouimtsidis
Christos
C
Department of Addictive Behaviour and Psychological Medicine, St. George's Hospital Medical School, University of London, Cranmer Terrace, Tooting, London SW17 0RE, UK. depad@sghms.ac.uk
Reynolds
Martina
M
Hunt
Mary
M
Lind
Jackie
J
Beckett
Jonathan
J
Drummond
Colin
C
Ghodse
Hamid
H
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000453:epidemiology; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005260:Female; D006769:Hospitals, General / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D007406:Interview, Psychological / Q000379:methods; D008131:London / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D012044:Regression Analysis; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014029:Tobacco Use Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology