Alcohol Dependence Among General Medical Inpatients

Abstract

Summary Alcoholics identified on medical wards were found to be less severely dependent overall than comparative samples admitted to a psychiatric hospital for treatment. This was the case although typical alcohol consumption levels were reported to be the same. Few ‘medical’alcoholics conformed to Jellinek's beta subtype and few were severely dependent. There was, however, on the scale of severity of dependence a similar distribution of cases of ‘absent to minimal’—‘mild to moderate’dependence between ‘medical’ alcoholics and approximately half of ‘psychiatric’ alcoholics. The remaining ‘psychiatric’ alcoholics were more severely dependent. The development of dependence as judged by the temporal ordering of symptoms occurred according to a sequence which was similar to that identified in psychiatric treatment settings.