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© 1992 Medical Council on Alcohol

research-article

REPORTS OF PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS AND ALCOHOL USE: FINDINGS FROM A PRIMARY HEALTH CARE SAMPLE

JOSEPH I. TRACY*, D. M. GORMAN{dagger} and ELAINE A. LEVENTHAL{ddagger}

*Department of Psychiatry, Medical College of Pennsylvania, Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute 3200 Henry Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19129, U.S.A.
{dagger}Center of Alcohol Studies, Rutgers University Piscataway, NJ 08855, U.S.A.
{ddagger}Department of Medicine, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research, Rutgers University New Brunswick, NJ 08903, U.S.A.

Received 3 December 1991; accepted 9 June 1992

The relationship between alcohol consumption and physical health was examined in a primary health care sample of 366 adults. Unlike many previous studies that relied on static measures of medical diagnoses, the data reported here are repeated assessments of self-reported symptoms and alcohol use over 12 months. The results suggest, first, that drinking patterns in non-alcoholic samples fluctuate over time, and, second, that abstainers who have more prior illnesses or worse current health consistently report the greatest number of physical symptoms. The data highlight the importance of accounting for the health status of abstainers before comparing them with users of alcohol, and suggest that the presence of physical symptoms in addition to objective indices of health (e.g. the need for medication) may play a role in the initiation or maintenance of abstinence.


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