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Pragmatic procedures for detecting and documenting alcoholism in medical patients
N G Hoffmann1, P A Harrison, S W Hall
1Department of Psychiatry, University of Minnesota, St. Paul.
Advances in Alcohol & Substance Abuse
|January 1, 1989
Abstract:
Although alcoholics are known to utilize a disproportionate amount of medical care, hospital patients are not routinely screened for alcoholism. A sample of 310 randomly selected patients from two hospitals were administered a structured diagnostic interview. More than one-third (35%) of the men and 14% of the women met DSM-III criteria for a current alcohol use disorder and an additional 27% of the men and 9% of the women met criteria for an alcohol use disorder in remission. The practicality and efficiency of structured interviews is discussed along with the potential of a small subset of items to serve as a screen for alcoholism.