Hospital morbidity and alcohol consumption in less severe psychiatric disorder: 7-Year outcomes

Background: Substance use by people with severe psychiatric morbidity is associated with negative outcomes. Aims: To assess in adults with less severe psychiatric morbidity the relationship between alcohol consumption and subsequent 7-year hospital admissions, and the development and recurrence of alcohol use disorders. Method: Follow-up data were assembled via a population-based hospital record-linkage system. Results: Baseline alcohol use groups were: dependent (n=31), harmful (n=114), moderate (n=621) and abstinent (n=249). The moderate but not the abstinent group had fewer mental health admissions and a longer time to first admission than the harmful and dependent groups. Both the moderate and the abstinent groups had longer times to 'all-cause' admissions than the dependent group. Many of those with alcohol use disorders at baseline relapsed (66%) but few (14%) developed a first-time alcohol use disorder. Conclusions: Overall, moderate alcohol consumption among those with less severe psychiatric morbidity was not associated with more mental health admissions; those with alcohol dependence had poorer health outcomes than the remaining categories.