Alcohol and Alcoholism Advance Access originally published online on January 12, 2009
Alcohol and Alcoholism 2009 44(2):216-221; doi:10.1093/alcalc/agn113
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Reported Beverage Consumed and Alcohol-Related Diseases among Male Hospital Inpatients with Problem Drinking
1 Institute of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-University, Greifswald, Germany
2 Institute for Medical Psychology, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-University, Greifswald, Germany
3 Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany
4 Department of Epidemiology and Health Monitoring, Robert Koch-Institute, Berlin, Germany
* Corresponding author: Institute of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-University of Greifswald, Walther-Rathenau-Str. 48, D-17487 Greifswald, Germany. Tel: +49-3834/867733; Fax: +49-3834/867701; E-mail: coder{at}uni-greifswald.de.
Received 4 August 2008; first review notified 19 September 2008; in revised form 12 December 2008; accepted 12 December 2008; advance access publication 12 January 2009
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Abstract |
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Aims: The aim of this study was to examine if problem drinkers have varying risks of having alcohol-related diseases according to their reported beverage consumed. Methods: In a cross-sectional study all consecutive inpatients aged 18– 64 years from four general hospitals of one catchment area were systematically screened for alcohol use. A total of 1011 men with problem drinking were used for this study. Routine treatment diagnoses for all participants were provided by hospital physicians and were classified into three categories according to their alcohol-attributable fractions (AAF; AAF = 0; AAF < 1; AAF = 1). Results: According to their reported beverage consumed, 53.0% of the participants were identified as exclusively beer drinkers, 14.1% exclusively spirits drinkers, 26.0% mixed beer and spirits drinkers and 6.9% individuals drinking wine exclusively or in combination with one or two other beverages (mixed wine drinkers). Compared to spirits drinkers and controlling for possible confounders (i.e. alcohol-associated characteristics, demographic variables), multinomial regressions revealed that beer drinkers, mixed beer and spirits drinkers, and mixed wine drinkers had lower odds of having diseases with AAF = 1 than spirits drinkers (e.g. for AAF = 1: beer versus spirits drinkers: OR = 0.42, CI: 0.25–0.72). Beer drinkers and mixed wine drinkers also had lower odds of having diseases with AAF < 1 than spirits drinkers (e.g. mixed wine versus spirits drinkers: OR = 0.36, CI: 0.18–0.72). Conclusions: These data suggest an association between the reported beverage consumed and alcohol-related diseases. Among hospitalized problem drinkers, spirits drinkers had the greatest risk of having diseases with AAF < 1 and with AAF = 1.