Monday, July 4, 2011

Alcohol Abuse Disorders and Healthcare Associated Infections

Congratulations to colleague and fellow collaborator, Dr. Marjolein de Wit, on her recently published article assessing the impact of alcohol abuse disorders on healthcare associated infections. The Science Daily press release can be found here.
The paper, published  in Alcoholism, Clinical and Experimental Research, can be accessed here.

From a total cohort of 149,892 patients who developed HAI,  8,830 (5.9%) had a codiagnosis of alcohol abuse disorder (AUD). People with AUDs who developed healthcare associated infections had longer hospital stays, thousands of dollars of higher hospital costs, and, by logistic regression modeling, much greater odds of dying  (OR=1.71 [71% greater odds] ).

Alcohol abuse and healthcare infections do not mix well.