[Referral to internal medicine for alcoholism: influence on follow-up care]

The problem of high rates of patient drop-out in alcohol treatment programs is frequently reported in the literature. Our aim was to investigate if internal medicine referral could improve abstinence and retention rates in a cohort of alcoholic patients.

A retrospective observational study was conducted comparing 200 alcoholic patients attending a psychiatric unit (group 1) with 100 patients attending both this unit and an internal medicine unit (group 2). We collected sociodemographic and clinical variables and analysed differences regarding abstinence and retention rates by means of univariate and multivariate analysis.

At 3 and 12 months follow-up, group 2 patients had higher retention and abstinence rates than group 1 patients. Multivariate analysis including potential confounding variables showed that independent predictors of one-year retention were internal medicine referral and being married. Independent predictors of one-year abstinence were being married, age > 44 years and receipt of drug treatment.

The higher retention rate found among patients referred to Internal Medicine specialists, a result that has not been previously reported to the best of our knowledge, emphasizes the importance of a multidisciplinary team approach in the treatment of alcoholism.