Alcohol Related Injuries in Emergency Departments: An Egyptian Study

Background: Alcohol intoxication is a worldwide problem being easily available in addition to the fact that its users aren’t aware of its detrimental effects on their health. This is in addition to the ignorance of alcohol users about its drastic role in the occurrence of different injuries being intentional or even unintentional to themselves or to others.

Objective: The current study aimed at: a- documenting the proportion of victims of non-fatal injuries with alcohol intoxication in a probability sample of emergency room patients .b- examining the context in which drinking had occurred prior to the injury .c- determining the association of patterns of drinking with injuries.

Methods: 500 injured victims attending the Emergency Department of Surgery at Ain Shams University hospital during the year 2016 were selected randomly. International Classification of External Causes of Injury (ICECI) was used to collect information from patients about their injuries and drinking pattern.  Also The International Classification of Disease (ICD-10Y91) was implemented in the study together with Injury Severity Score (ISS) to access clinical signs of intoxication and severity of injuries respectively.

Results: Out of 500 tested cases, 156 (31.2%) reported that they had been drinking alcohol before their injury. 98 of them were males and 8 were females. Most of injuries were abrasions and contused wounds occurred due to hitting by blunt object during a fight in recreational areas.

Conclusion: There is correlation between alcohol consumption and injury occurrence together with direct correlation between the severity of injury and degree of intoxication.