Utilization of health care resources, long-term survival and causes of death after intensive care unit admission in relation to high-risk alcohol consumption

ABSTRACT

Background

The aim was to examine the impact of high-risk alcohol consumption on health care service utilization and causes of death after ICU discharge.

Methods

This retrospective cohort study included non-trauma admissions to ICU in 2014 in Oulu University Hospital, Finland. The National Institution for Health and Welfare provided the data of health care contacts and causes of death.

Results

There was a total of 715 ICU survivors, 234 (32.7%) in the alcohol group and 481 (67.3%) in the non-alcohol group. There were no differences between groups in the mortality, median number of primary health care visits, or hospital admissions, but alcohol- and trauma-related visits were more frequent in the alcohol group. 22.5% (vs 2.2%, p < .001) of the patients in the alcohol-group died due to traumas and 29.6% (vs 0.7%, p < .001) due to alcohol-related causes, whereas malignancies and cardiovascular causes (79.4% vs 35.2%, p < .001) were the most common causes in the non-alcohol group.

Conclusions

One-third of the patients with high-risk alcohol consumption died due to alcohol-related causes and one-fifth due to traumas. High-risk consumption of alcohol did not have a significant impact on the health care resource use after ICU discharge.

KEYWORDS:

• Alcohol
• intensive care
• health care resource
• mortality
• causes of death

Disclosure statement

None of the authors report conflict of interrest.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received funding for the study from The Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies and Finnish Medical Society Duodecim.