Socioeconomic factors, hazardous alcohol consumption, and smoking in patients with minor trauma in an inner-city emergency department.
Emergency Department (ED) patients show a high prevalence of hazardous alcohol consumption and smoking. The objective of this study was to determine if socioeconomic factors and smoking status help to optimize screening for hazardous alcohol consumption (HAC) in patients with minor trauma. A survey was conducted in an ED in an inner-city university hospital. A total of 2562 patients with minor trauma were screened for HAC (≥ 8 points in men and ≥ 5 points in women on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test), smoking status, and socioeconomic factors. The median age of participants was 32 years, with 62.1% being male. A total of 84.2% of patients had an Injury Severity Score of 1, indicating minor trauma. Overall, 23.5% of patients showed a pattern of HAC, whereas 46.2% were current smokers. Compared to patients without HAC, those with HAC were characterized by lower incomes, no partnership, living in a single-household, and being unemployed. The strongest discriminative variable for HAC for patients aged ≤ 53 years was smoking status. Gender differences played a role only in patients older than 53 years. Although socioeconomic factors showed a non-equal distribution in patients with respectively without HAC, solely age, gender, and smoking status may provide a successful stratification for alcohol screening and intervention in these patients.
Neuner
Bruno
B
Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Charité-Universitaetsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.
Miller
Peter
P
Wang
Kang Kandy
KK
Weiss-Gerlach
Edith
E
Neumann
Tim
T
Schoenfeld
Helge
H
Haas
Norbert
N
Mueller
Joachim M
JM
Wernecke
Klaus Dieter
KD
Mann
Karl
K
Andréasson
Sven
S
Spies
Claudia
C
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000435:Alcoholic Intoxication / Q000453:epidemiology*; D000465:Algorithms; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D003663:Decision Trees; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014505:Urban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology*; D055815:Young Adult