Center for alcohol and drug research (KORFOR)
TRAITS Hospital
Trajectories Related to an Alcohol Intervention in Treatment Settings
Alcohol is one of the leading risk factors for the global burden of disease and linked to over 200 diseases and injuries. A large proportion of individuals with hazardous alcohol use or alcohol use disorders (AUD) are not identified in the healthcare system and does not receive treatment. However, an admission to a general hospital ward, may be an excellent window of opportunity to address patients’ alcohol use, as it can be relevant for their health condition, improve their treatment outcome, and lead to more patients receiving help.
Despite over 40 years of research demonstrating strong evidence for screening and interventions for hazardous alcohol use and AUD, it is unknown which strategies are being used in Norwegian hospitals, how successful they are in identifying and managing hazardous alcohol use and AUD, and to what extent they are implemented in clinical settings. The Norwegian ministry of Health and Care Sciences have mandated three times, in their assignment document to the regional health authorities that hospitals should have strategies in place to identify underlying alcohol and drug-related problems. Thus, the overall aim of TRAITS hospital includes:
- Describing different intervention methods for alcohol interventions in somatic hospital wards in Norway.
- Describe what characterizes the periods prior to and following the hospital admission where hazardous alcohol use was addressed.
- Investigate if the patient trajectories of patients receiving an alcohol screening and intervention differs from matched controls.
TRAITS Hospital is an observational cohort study utilizing a longitudinal design. Baseline data from 7 different hospitals across Norway was collected during a hospital stay in somatic care, where the healthcare personnel suspected that alcohol was a contributing factor to the patient’s health problems. The baseline data will then be retrospectively and prospectively be linked to national registries to investigate the patient trajectories in terms of disease burden, healthcare utilization and prescription medication usage. In total 421 patients have consented to participate.
