Alcohol and psychiatric illness: longitudinal study of psychiatric admissions in a cohort of Swedish conscripts

The association between level of alcohol consumption and admission for psychiatric care during a 15-year follow-up was studied in a cohort of 49,464 Swedish conscripts. The relative risk for psychiatric admission among high consumers of alcohol (more than 250 g alcohol per week) was 5.3 (95% confidence interval 4.7-6.0) compared with moderate consumers (1-100 g alcohol per week). After control for social background variables in a multivariate model, the odds ratio was 1.8 (1.5-2.1). Abstainers had the same rate of admission as moderate consumers. The association with alcohol was positive in all diagnostic categories studied. Neurotic depression was found to be a risk factor for admission for alcoholism, indicating that a causal association between alcohol and neurotic depression may go in both directions.