caa a22 4500 46906756X CHVBK 20180323132912.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170328e19920301xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/BF02521305 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/BF02521305 Alcoholism treatment, severity of alcohol-related medical complications, and health services utilization [Elektronische Daten] [Cynthia Loveland Cook, Brenda Booth, Frederic Blow, Aruna Gogineni, Janice Bunn] In efforts to contain costs and efficiently allocate resources, evaluation studies in alcoholism have increasingly assessed the effect of treatment on the use of health services through comparisons of treated and untreated alcoholics. The success of this approach requires that evaluators identify and adjust for differences between these two groups, thereby decreasing the likelihood that health utilization outcomes are attributed to the effects of treatment when in fact they may be related more to unidentified group differences. Using a sample of 63,873 hospitalized alcoholics, this study focused on one critical group difference, the severity of alcohol-related medical complications. Comparisons between treated alcoholics who either completed alcoholism treatment or detoxification only and untreated alcoholics with either primary medical/surgical or psychiatric diagnoses demonstrated the following: (a) untreated alcoholics with medical/surgical diagnoses were more likely to have severe alcohol-related medical complications than the other groups; (b) a positive linear relationship between health services utilization in the previous year and the severity of medical complications existed for all groups, except untreated alcoholics with psychiatric diagnoses; and (c) untreated alcoholics with psychiatric diagnoses with the most severe complications used fewer health services than any of the other three groups. Differences between treated and untreated alcoholics in both severity of medical complications and previous health utilization patterns demonstrate the need to identify and adjust for these factors in evaluation studies that examine the outcomes of alcoholism treatment. Association of Mental Health Administrators, 1992 Loveland Cook Cynthia George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University, Campus Box 1196, 63130, St. Louis, MO aut Booth Brenda Health Services Research, VA Medical Center, Iowa City aut Blow Frederic Alcohol Research Center, University of Michigan, USA aut Gogineni Aruna George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University, Washington, USA aut Bunn Janice Health Services Research, VA Medical Center, Iowa City, Iowa aut The journal of mental health administration Springer-Verlag 19/1(1992-03-01), 31-40 0092-8623 19:1<31 1992 19 11414 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02521305 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02521305 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Loveland Cook Cynthia George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University, Campus Box 1196, 63130, St. Louis, MO aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Booth Brenda Health Services Research, VA Medical Center, Iowa City aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Blow Frederic Alcohol Research Center, University of Michigan, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Gogineni Aruna George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University, Washington, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Bunn Janice Health Services Research, VA Medical Center, Iowa City, Iowa aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- The journal of mental health administration Springer-Verlag 19/1(1992-03-01), 31-40 0092-8623 19:1<31 1992 19 11414 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer