Prevalence and patterns of hospital use for people with frequent alcohol‐related hospital admissions, compared to non‐alcohol and non‐frequent admissions: a cohort study using routine administrative hospital data

Abstract

Aims This study compared prevalence and hospital use among individuals frequently admitted to hospital in England with wholly attributable alcohol-related diagnoses (WAAD), known as alcohol-related frequent attenders (ARFAs), with those of non-alcohol frequent attenders (NAFAs), non-frequent alcohol attenders (ARNFAs) and non-alcohol nonfrequent attenders (NANFAs). Design Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of 5 years of England's Hospital Episode Statistics (HES). Setting Hospital inpatients in England, UK, 2011-16. Participants Two cohorts (2011/12 = 489 580/7 654 944 patients and 2015/16 = 490 384/7 660 108 patients) were selected from all adult patients aged ≥ 18 years, treated in English hospitals between 1 April 2011 and 31 March 2016. Patients were categorized as having alcohol-related admissions if diagnoses included a WAAD (ICD-10 classification, WHO, 2016) and frequent admissions if they had more than three hospital admissions during a single HES year. Measurements Prevalence of ARFA, number of admissions (spells), occupied bed-days (OBDs), average length of stay (ALOS) and total admission costs over 5 years were compared among ARFAs, ARNFAs, NAFAs and NANFAs. Findings On average, 0.7% of people admitted to hospital per annum in England 2011-15 were ARFAs and more than a quarter of all frequent attenders (for all causes) to hospitals had a wholly attributable alcohol diagnosis on admission. ARFAs had longer ALOS than the other patient

New dimensions for hospital services and early detection of disease: a Review from the Lancet Commission into liver disease in the UK

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The association between involuntary alcohol treatment and subsequent emergency department visits and hospitalizations: a Bayesian analysis of treated patients and matched controls

“…The other outcome of interest to policymakers is the burden on the health‐care system of repeat presentations. Repeat ED visits and unplanned hospital presentations for alcohol‐related problems represent high costs to the health‐care system [16]. One rationale for involuntary treatment is to reduce this burden, and the programme deliberately targets individuals who have repeated ED presentations and unplanned hospital admissions.…”