Age at Onset of Alcohol Use and Alcohol Use Disorder: Time-trend Study in Patients Seeking De-addiction Services in Kerala.

Background: Declining age at onset of alcohol consumption over years has been one of the alarming findings in the epidemiology of alcoholism. The study was done to examine whether there was a decline in the age at onset of alcohol use and use disorder in subjects categorized as birth cohorts over the last 60 years seeking de-addiction services from a teaching hospital.

Materials And Methods: A time-trend study, based on data collected from records, was done among 700 randomly selected subjects seeking de-addiction services.