Prevalence of alcohol problems among elderly patients in a university hospital

Aims. To assess the prevalence of alcohol abuse and the prevalence of alcoh ol-related discharge diagnosis in an elderly general hospital population. D esign. On a randomly selected day, all patients aged 65 years and over admi tted to a university hospital were screened. Setting. University Hospital o f Amiens, France. Participants. All patients aged 65 years and over were ap proached and requested to rake part in the study. They were interviewed usi ng the CAGE questionnaire and with a structured questionnaire regarding lif e-style, and asked about their usual daily alcohol consumption. The medical history of each patient was taken. In total, 612 patients fulfilled the ag e criteria, but 205 patients (33.6%) had to be excluded owing to predefined exclusion criteria (e.g. dementia, aphasia, terminal illness...) and 37 pa tients (6%) refused to participate. Findings. The data were derived from 37 0 patients. The median age was 79 years; 54% reported no alcohol consumptio n; 9% of patients scored positive on the CAGE questionnaire. The prevalence of patients with a CAGE questionnaire positive was significantly higher am ong male patients (17%) than female patients (2.5%). The prevalence ofparie nts with alcohol-related discharge diagnosis was 7%. The frequency of highe r socio-economic status or divorced status increased significantly with alc ohol consumption. Conclusions. There may be a substantial prevalence of alc ohol problems in elderly hospital patients. Research is needed to examine h ow generalized this problem is.