Alcohol-related injury in the ER: a cross national meta-analysis from the ERCAAP

CHERPITEL, CHERYL J.; BOND, JASON; YE, YU; BORGES, GUILHERME; MACDONALD, SCOTT; STOCKWELL, TIM; GIESBRECHT, NORMAN; CREMONTE, MARIANA

Encuentro; Anual Meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism; 2013

Objective: To examine the impact of usualdrinking patterns and related problems on the acute use or alcohol in injury. Methods:The impact of quantity and frequency of drinking, alcohol problems anddependence symptoms on admission to the emergency room (ER) for analcohol-related injury (based, separately, on a positive BAC and self-reporteddrinking within six hours prior to injury) compared to a non-alcohol relatedinjury was examined using meta-analysis, across 15 ER studies covering sevencountries. Results: Pooled effect size for consuming 5 or more drinks onan occasion at least monthly was significant but not homogeneous, with oddsratios of 4.16 for BAC and 3.92 for self-report.  Frequency of drinking among non-heavydrinkers was found to have the largest effect size (5.93 for BAC and 4.93 forself-report), while heavy drinking, controlling for frequency, was alsosignificant (odds ratios of 2.08 for BAC and 1.86 for self-report), but effectsize was homogeneous only for self-report. Effect sizes for consequences of drinking and dependence symptoms werealso significant and homogeneous, with odds ratios of 4.29 and 3.55,respectively, for BAC and 3.84 and 3.94, respectively, for self-report.  In meta-regression analysis, among contextualvariables, the level to which alcohol use is stigmatized in the culture wasmost consistently predictive of heavy drinking effect size on analcohol-related injury, with larger effect sizes found in those studiesreporting a lower level of stigmatization. Conclusions: While quantity and frequency of drinking were bothfound to be highly predictive of an alcohol-related injury, socio-culturalvariables may affect observed associations of heavy drinking with analcohol-related injury.