The hospital treatment of alcoholics in Eastern Slovenia

Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the number and types of hospitalized alcohol dependents with and without withdrawal symptoms and their laboratory markers in the hospitals of Eastern Slovenia in the years 2002 and 2007. Results: There were 776 alcohol dependent patients in the year 2002 and 672 in the year 2007 discharged from all hospitals. The hospitals differed from each other with respect to the profile of dismissed patients. Apparent is a low number of patients with withdrawal symptoms at the Department of Psychiatry of the University Medical Centre Maribor. In the complex of laboratory examinations in all three hospitals there were only gamma-Glutamyltransferase (GGT), Aspartat-Aminotransferase (AST) and Alanin-Aminotransferase (ALT) as well as mean corpuscular volume (MCV) determined. In the year 2007, all the mean values of alcohol dependency markers were statistically significantly increased as compared to the year 2002, except for MCV in women. Even the shares of pathological values were higher in the year 2007. Conclusions: The number of hospitalized alcoholics and all patients in psychiatric hospitals of the Eastern Slovenia was statistically significantly lower in the year 2007 than in 2002. Even the percentage of hospitalized alcoholics was decreased. The alcoholics hospitalized in 2007 were physically statistically significantly more affected than the alcoholics hospitalized in 2002. The differences in pathological marker values were not so pronounced that they could be used as a predictor of withdrawal symptoms. The most specific laboratory markers of alcoholism, i.e. carbohydrate deficient trasferrin (CDT) and Glutamate Dehydrogenase (GLDH) had not been used in any of the three hospitals.