Objective: The purpose of routine alcohol screening is to identify patients who may benefit from brief intervention, but patients who also have alcohol and other substance use disorders (AUD/SUD) likely require more intensive interventions. This study sought to determine the prevalence of clinically documented AUD/SUD among VA outpatients with unhealthy alcohol use identified by routine screening.
Methods: VA patients 18-90 years who screened positive for unhealthy alcohol use (AUDIT-C ≥3 women; ≥4 men) and were randomly selected for quality improvement standardized medical record review (6/06-6/10) were included. Gender-stratified prevalences of clinically documented AUD/SUD (diagnosis of AUD, SUD, or alcohol-specific medical conditions, or VA specialty addictions treatment on the date of or 365 days prior to screening) were estimated and compared across AUDIT-C risk groups, and then repeated across groups further stratified by age.
Results: Among 63,397 eligible patients with unhealthy alcohol use, 25% (n=2109) women and 28% (n=15,199) men had documented AUD/SUD (p<0.001). The prevalence of AUD/SUD increased with increasing AUDIT-C risk, ranging from 13% (95% CI 13-14%) to 82% (79-85%) for women and 12% (11-12%) to 69% (68-71%) for men in the lowest and highest AUDIT-C risk groups, respectively. Patterns were similar across age groups.
Conclusions: One-quarter of all patients with unhealthy alcohol use, and a majority of those with the highest alcohol screening scores, had clinically recognized AUD/SUD. Healthcare systems implementing evidence-based alcohol-related care should be prepared to offer more intensive interventions and/or effective pharmacotherapies for these patients.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2013.11.016 | DOI Listing |
Am J Prev Cardiol
March 2025
Department of Cardiology, IIS-Fundación Jiménez Díaz, Av. de los Reyes Católicos, 2, Moncloa - Aravaca, 28040 Madrid, Spain.
Objective: To quantify the added clinical benefit of a healthy lifestyle following an acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Our study seeks to answer the question: Is adherence to medical therapy sufficient or a healthy lifestyle provides additional improvement?.
Methods: This is a prospective observational multi-center study of 685 ACS patients.
BMC Public Health
January 2025
Department of Disease Control and Environmental Health, Makerere University School of Public Health, Kampala, Uganda.
Background: The prevalence of hypertension is high in Uganda, which places a significant burden on an already strained healthcare system. The behavioural risk factors, such as unhealthy diet, tobacco use, physical inactivity, and heavy drinking, contribute to hypertension development and complications. This study explored the associations of combined tobacco smoking and heavy alcohol consumption with existing hypertension in a community-based cross-sectional study conducted in two rural districts of Uganda.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAustralas Psychiatry
January 2025
Centre for Alcohol Policy Research, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
The federal Australian government has introduced legislation to require social media platforms to restrict access to their platforms for young people under 16 years of age. Amongst the conversations about protecting the health and wellbeing of young people, we have yet to see discussion on the impact of alcohol imagery as a pervasive 'unhealthy' industry on social media. This is problematic because young people consume a large amount of social media content and are exposed to glamorised alcohol depictions and targeted advertising.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnn Med
December 2025
Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco and San Francisco General Hospital, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Introduction: Latinx individuals are disproportionately affected by alcohol use disorder (AUD). Understanding Latinx individuals' barriers and facilitators to reach AUD-related goals can help implement culturally and linguistically concordant interventions to improve alcohol-related outcomes.
Methods: We conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with Latinx, Spanish-speaking men with AUD within 20 weeks of hospital discharge who were seen by an addiction consult team during hospitalization in an urban, safety-net hospital in San Francisco.
Background And Aims: In Bangladesh, data related to the future risk of dementia and its associated factors are scarce. Furthermore, no dementia risk prediction tool has yet been applied to estimate the risk in any population in Bangladesh. Therefore, our objective was to assess the risk of dementia and its associated factors among patients with coronary artery disease (CAD).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!