Trauma
Abstracts
Wirachin Hoonpongsimanont, MD, MS
University of California Irvine Health
Background: Established literature has suggested that patients with an alcohol use disorder (AUD) have an increased risk of developing complications during their hospital stays. However, how AUD impacts length of stay (LOS) and increases the utilization of hospital resources remains inconclusive. This study aimed to identify the associations between self-reported alcohol consumption, blood alcohol content (BAC), and hospital LOS including intensive care unit (ICU) LOS in the trauma patient population.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective study from 2010-2018 at a university-based, level-one trauma emergency department. We identified 1,689 adult trauma patients who completed the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), a validated alcohol self-reporting survey, and were admitted to the ICU. We retrieved BAC, age, gender, LOS, and injury severity score (ISS) from the patient charts. We used student's t-test or analysis of variance (ANOVA) and independent samples Kruskal-Wallis H test if necessary. Partial Eta squared was considered as a measure of effect size for ANOVA.
Results: ISS was significantly associated with both higher hospital LOS (chi2(2) = 49.2, P < 0.001, Eta squared= 0.15) and ICU LOS (chi2(2)= 161.6, P < 0.001, Eta squared= 0.10). After adjusting for ISS, there was no statistically significant association between AUDIT and ICU LOS (P= 0.31, partial Eta squared = 0.002) or hospital LOS (P= 0.53, partial Eta squared = 0.001). Furthermore, we found no significant association between BAC and ICU LOS (P= 0.63) or hospital LOS (P= 0.19).
Conclusions: Our study found no associations between AUDIT, BAC and both hospital and ICU LOS even though literature supported an increased risk of medical complications in AUD patients.