Successful Physician Interventions With Hospitalized Alcoholic Patients

Despite high morbidity and monality rates of alcoholism, physicians fail to diagnose alcoholism in up to 50 percent of alcoholic patients and offer adequate treatment to only 5 to 15 percent. l -4 Physicians' pessimistic attitudes toward alcoholism treatment are believed to be a major contributor to this problem. Many physicians manage the complications of alcoholism without addressing the underlying disease, assuming that patients are not interested in treatment, that they as physicians lack the time or skills needed to intervene with alcoholic patients, or that treatment itself will be of little benefit.S,6 The assumption, however, that interventions with alcoholic patients are "doomed to failure" is largely untested. Only two previous studies have examined the effectiveness of attempted interventions with hospitalized alcoholic patients, and neither of these involved physician interventions.7,8 A pilot study was undertaken to explore three different methods for referring hospitalized alcoholic patients for treatment.