Clinical Trial: Impact of Alcohol Consumption on Use of Health Care Resources

Study Status: Completed
Recruit Status: Completed
Study Type: Observational

Official Title: Impact of Alcohol Consumption of the General Population Who Visited Primary Health Care Centers on the Use of Health Care Resources in Catalonia.

Brief Summary:

The prevalence of alcohol-related disorders in the general population is around 10%. The relationship between the use of healthcare services, costs and the amount of alcohol consumed by the general population is unknown. Because alcoholism is a major public health problem, it is significant to determine the prevalence of consumption of primary users and the relationship between the dose of alcohol and health care costs. This information may allow the implementation of preventive strategies to reduce consumption with the aim to reduce morbidity and healthcare expenditure.

A cross-sectional study will be carried out. Patients over 17 years old, treated at primary healthcare centers in Catalonia that have available data on alcohol consumption from January 2010 to December 2012 will be included. Clinical and sociodemographic data will be collected. Health service use and health care costs from 2013 will be collected from SIDIAP (The Information System for the Development of Research in Primary Care) database.

A positive relationship between grams of alcohol consumed per week and the use of resources and health expenditure will be expected and also the level of risk of alcohol consumption. There will be a descriptive analysis of the clinical data and sociodemographic variables. A multivariate analysis will be done to see the relationship between alcohol consumption and health care costs and health care service utilization.

Detailed Summary:

The aim of the study is to describe the association between alcohol consumption and the use of health care resources and the health care costs in Catalonia, which is a region of Spain.

A cross-sectional study was done. Patients recruited in the study were those attended in the primary health care whose alcohol consumption was registered in the electronic medical record between 1st of January 2011 to 31st of December 2012. At Baseline (31st of December 2012), sociodemographic data and clinical data was recorded, and health care utilization and costs were obtained from year 2013.

Two different registers were used for sociodemographic, clinical and health service utilization indicators and costs. Information on life style factors (alcohol and tobacco consumption, body mass index), demographic information like the ecologic MEDEA index, and sick-leave costs were obtained from the Information System for the Development of Research in Primary Care (SIDIAP) database. This clinical database has anonymized records of almost the 80% of the Catalan population. General practitioners can record alcohol consumption in two different ways (quantitative and categorical information). A quantitative variable defined as grams of alcohol per week and a categorical variable measuring the risk of alcohol consumption (none, low risk, risky drinker). The type of risk was defined as follows (No drinker; Low drinker (men who drinks <280g per week of alcohol or women who drinks <179g per week); Riky drinker (men who drinks >=280g per week or women who drinks >=170g per week of alcohol, or men who drinks more than 5 drinks per occasion, women who drinks more than 4 drinks per occasion; men who drinks <280g per week of alcohol or women who drinks <179g per week and at the same time work with heavy machinery or are taking medication tha
Sponsor: Hospital Clinic of Barcelona

Current Primary Outcome:

• Health economic costs (composite measure) [ Time Frame: 1 year ]
  Association between alcohol consumption and Health economic costs (euros per individual) which include the sum of the following costs: primary health costs (appointments with the doctor, nurse or social worker), laboratory costs, pharmacy expenses, Inpatients costs from General hospitals, Psychiatric hospitals or rehabilitation hospitals, costs due to emergency visits, costs of outpatient visits in mental health and costs due to appointments with specialists.
• sick-leave costs [ Time Frame: 1 year ]
  sick leave costs (euros per individual)

Original Primary Outcome: Same as current

Current Secondary Outcome:

• Primary health care costs [ Time Frame: 1 year ]
  Association between alcohol consumption and primary health care costs which include costs due to the patients appointments with the doctor, nurse or social worker (euros per individual)
• laboratory costs [ Time Frame: 1 year ]
  Association between alcohol consumption and laboratory costs (euros per individual)
• Pharmacy expenses [ Time Frame: 1 year ]
  Association between alcohol consumption and pharmacy expenses (euros per individual)
• Inpatient costs [ Time Frame: 1 year ]
  Association between alcohol consumption and inpatient costs which include: Inpatients costs from General hospitals, Psychiatric hospitals or rehabilitation hospitals (euros per individual)
• costs due to emergency attendance [ Time Frame: 1 year ]
  Association between alcohol consumption and costs due to the emergency room attendance (euros per individual)
• outpatient mental health costs [ Time Frame: 1 year ]
  Association between alcohol consumption and outpatients mental health costs (euros per individual).
• specialists consults costs [ Time Frame: 1 year ]
  Association between alcohol consumption and costs due to specialists consults
• Primary health visits [ Time Frame: 1 year ]
  Association between alcohol consumption and the number of appointments with the general practitioner, nurse or social worker
• Admissions in hospital [ Time Frame: 1 year ]
  Association between alcohol consumption and the number of hospital admissions (general hospital, mental health and rehabilitation hospitals)
• days of stay in hospital [ Time Frame: 1year ]
  Association between alcohol consumption and the number of days of stay in hospitals (General Hospital, Psychiatric Hospital or Rehabilitation hospital)
• emergency contacts [ Time Frame: 1 year ]
  Association between alcohol consumption and the number of emergency visits.
• specialists appointments [ Time Frame: 1 year ]
  Association between alcohol consumption and the number of visits done with a specialist.
• Hospital admissions causes [ Time Frame: 1 year ]
  Number of hospital admissions depending on the cause (wholly attributable to alcohol, partly attributable- acute, partly attributed-chronic or not related with alcohol consumption)

Original Secondary Outcome: Same as current

Information By: Hospital Clinic of Barcelona

Dates:
Date Received: January 13, 2015
Date Started: December 2012
Date Completion:
Last Updated: January 16, 2015
Last Verified: January 2015