A population based perspective of twenty years of specialized ambulatory treatment for alcohol use disorders in publicly financed clinics. Barcelona 1996-2015.

Objective: To provide information on persons treated for alcohol use disorders (AUD) over 20 years in a large city in a Southern European country and its trends, adding knowledge on the frequency of treatment from a population perspective.

Methods: This is a study of the number of annual admissions to ambulatory addiction treatment centers funded by the public sector in Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) for the years 1996-2015. Descriptive analyses of AUD admissions were conducted, comparing changes in the number of patients entering treatment by different independent variables across periods. For city residents, sex and age-specific population annual treatment initiation rates were estimated.

Results: The number of ambulatory admissions to AUD treatment increased over the study period. There were about 2100 treatment admissions per year in 2011-2015, of which one fourth were women. About half of these patients had never been treated before for any substance use disorder. Annual rates of treatment initiation among city residents were 208 and 68 per 100,000 people aged 15 and older for men and women respectively, almost the double among 45-54 years old citizens. Rates of total AUD treatment admission increased moderately, but declined among younger adult men.

Conclusions: These figures provide a basic population-based estimation for formal AUD treatment use in a Southern European urban setting with services available free of charge. The development of ambulatory publicly funded addiction centers may have improved access to treatment for people with AUD. age-related changes in treatment admissions may either be related to trends in the population pattern of drinking or to changes in the city demographics.