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[Yield of laboratory tests in the detection of excessive drinkers in the work place]
1Medicina Familiar y Comunitaria, Area Básica de Salud Llefia, Badalona, Barcelona.
Background:
The identification of personnel consuming excess quantities of alcoholic beverages in the work place is necessary due to the economic, health, and laboral problems caused by alcohol. The objectivity of laboratory tests provides great credibility and these tests have replaced other methods as the anamnesis.
Methods:
A transversal study was carried out of the employees of a Barcelona enterprise. During the periodic medical check ups the consumption of alcoholic beverages and laboratory blood tests were obtained from the employees seven days previously.
Results:
All the laboratory tests presented a weak positive correlation with the consumption of alcohol. The calculation of diagnostic efficacy for weekly consumption equal to or grater than 280 g of pure alcohol in a male shows that the greatest sensitivity corresponds to mean corpuscle volume (33%) followed by gammaglutamyltranspeptidase (GGT) (16%) with high specificity being observed in both (85% and 93%, respectively). The results are better in employee consuming more than or equal to 420 g of alcohol weekly.
Conclusions:
The diagnostic efficacy of laboratory tests in identifying subjects with elevated consumption of alcohol in the work place has low clinical performance and the use of anamnesis on the consumption of alcoholic beverages should first be evaluated.