ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Use of blood alcohol concentration in resuscitation room patients
1 Imperial College London, Accident and Emergency, St Marys Hospital, London, UK
2 Accident and Emergency, St Marys Hospital, London, UK
3 Imperial College London, London, UK
4 Chemical Pathology and Immunology, St Marys Hospital, London, UK
5 Department of Psychological Medicine, Imperial College London, London, UK
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
ProfessorRobin Touquet
Accident and Emergency Department, St Marys Hospital, Praed Street, London W2 1NY, UK; robin.touquet{at}st-marys.nhs.uk
Objective: To clarify the use of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) in the emergency department resuscitation room, by comparing it with a subsequent alcohol questionnaire and by surveying patients attitudes to BAC testing.
Design: Observational study.
Participants: 273 resuscitation room patients at St Marys Hospital, Paddington between August 2005 and February 2006.
Main outcome measures: BAC comparison to questionnaire results, and attitudes to BAC testing.
Results: The level of agreement between positive screening by questionnaire and a BAC of >80 mg/100 ml was low (
= 0.29, 95% confidence interval 0.12 to 0.46) because each test measures different aspects of drinking. Patients accepted the use of BAC tests in detecting alcohol use, though a small minority reported concerns over confidentiality.
Conclusion: Use of BAC testing complements later questionnaire screening to identify alcohol misuse in patients initially brought to the emergency department resuscitation room, providing results are fed back to the patient. Potential ethical, judicial and insurance concerns should not prevent the use of BAC when judged to be in the patients best interest.
Abbreviations: ANS, alcohol nurse specialist; BAC, blood alcohol concentration; ED, emergency department; PAT, Paddington Alcohol Test
Relevant Article
![]()
CiteULike
Complore
Connotea
Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Technorati What's this?
Emerg. Med. J. 2007 24: 523.
This article has been cited by other articles:
-
Indig, D, Copeland, J, Conigrave, K M
(2009). Comparing methods of detecting alcohol-related emergency department presentations. Emerg. Med. J.
26: 596-600
[Abstract] [Full Text] -
Touquet, R, Csipke, E, Holloway, P, Brown, A, Patel, T, Seddon, A J, Gulati, P, Moore, H, Batrick, N, Crawford, M J
(2008). Resuscitation room blood alcohol concentrations: one-year cohort study. Emerg. Med. J.
25: 752-756
[Abstract] [Full Text] -
Hough, M., Hunter, G.
(2008). The 2003 Licensing Act's impact on crime and disorder: An evaluation. Criminal Justice
8: 239-260
[Abstract]
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
