The proportion of intensive care unit admissions related to alcohol use: a prospective cohort study.
BACKGROUND
Alcohol abuse is a risk factor for serious illnesses, and a history of chronic alcohol abuse adversely affects the outcome of critically ill patients. It is not known what proportion of intensive care unit (ICU) admissions is related to alcohol use. Therefore, we investigated the proportion of emergency admissions related to alcohol.


METHODS
A prospective cohort study was conducted in a university hospital ICU. All adult patients (n = 893) who underwent emergency admission to our ICU during a period of 1 year were studied.


RESULTS
The admitting physician determined whether there was a relationship between alcohol use and admission. ICU and hospital mortality and ICU length of stay (LOS) were recorded. The Therapeutic Intervention Scoring System (TISS) was used for ICU resource use estimation. There was a relationship between alcohol use and admission in 24% (215/893) of admissions and, in 156/893 admissions (17.5%), this seemed to be definite. ICU LOS was 1.2 days (0.7; 2.3) (median; interquartile range) for alcohol-related and 1.8 days (0.9; 3.6) for other admissions (P < 0.001). Patients with alcohol-related admissions consumed 17.8% of ICU patient-days and 18.7% of all accumulated TISS scores. ICU (8.8 vs. 10.5%, P = 0.603) and hospital (19.1 vs. 20.2%, P = 0.769) mortalities were no different between alcohol-related and other admissions.


CONCLUSIONS
ICU admission is very often related to long-term chronic and/or occasional alcohol use.
Uusaro
A
A
Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Division of Critical Care, Kuopio University Hospital, Kuopio, Finland. ari.uusaro@kuh.fi
Parviainen
I
I
Tenhunen
J J
JJ
Ruokonen
E
E
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000401:mortality; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003422:Critical Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland / Q000453:epidemiology; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D007902:Length of Stay; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies