[Acute and chronic alcohol abuse--effect on inpatient treatment of trauma surgery patients]

The effect of alcoholism on the length of stay and costs of hospital treatment is not well documented. The posttraumatic course of treatment of 75 alcohol intoxicated patients was prospectively followed. A shortened MAST-test served to identify chronic alcoholised patients. The obtained data were compared with a control group according to the matched-pair method. The course of treatment of 44 drunken patients without signs of chronic alcoholism was not different from the control group. However 31 chronic alcohol intoxicated patients showed a clearly different course from the control group. The hospital stay was nearly doubled (13.5 days) compared to the control group (7.5 days). There were explicitly more consultations of specialists (26 vs. 9) necessary and the complication rate (9 vs. 1) during the hospital stay was significantly increased. Chronic alcoholism of traumatised patients yields to a cost increase of the hospital treatment. The high complication rate forces an intensive supervision of the affected patients. These results have to be taken into account by calculations of reimbursement rates for the field of trauma surgery.