Citation

Persson J, Magnusson PH. Acta Med. Scand. 1988; 223(2): 101-109.

Affiliation

Department of Internal Medicine, Central Hospital, Karlstad, Sweden.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1988, Almqvist and Wiksell)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

2894748

Abstract

A study of excessive alcohol consumption was carried out on 2,114 adult somatic outpatients. All patients were evaluated by the following methods: Blood-chemical tests (serum gamma-glutamyltransferase (S-GT), serum aspartate aminotransferase (S-ASAT) and ethanol), patient's and doctor's questionnaires, and analysis of data from psychiatric records, social welfare registers and alcohol ambulatory services. Records from psychiatric clinics detected 48% of the patients. Forty per cent of the alcohol patients had S-GT levels greater than 0.9 mu kat/l. S-ASAT and blood ethanol levels were of little informative value. The doctors recognized excessive consumption (greater than 280 g of ethanol/week). The combination of S-GT and questionnaires to patients and doctors detected 63% of the alcohol patients. Both in epidemiological studies and in clinical practice it seems appropriate to use combinations of different methods to detect patients with underlying alcohol problems.

Language: en