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Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2006;295:2839.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Data collected by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality indicate that US community hospitals treated nearly 210 000 patients for alcohol abuse disorders in 2003 at a cost of about $2 billion. In addition, more than 1 million patients admitted for other reasons also had diagnoses of alcohol abuse and approximately 3% of all hospital stays had some mention of the problem.

Overall, 65% of all hospital admissions due primarily to alcohol abuse disorders also involved a substance abuse disorder; 34.4% involved mood disorders such as depression or bipolar disorder; 11.5% included alcohol-related liver disease; and 8.7% included anxiety disorders.

These and additional data were drawn from hospitals that comprise 90% of all discharges in the United States. The report, Hospitalizations for Alcohol Abuse Disorders, 2003, is available at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb4.pdf.

A new study reveals that US community hospitals treated nearly 210 000 individuals for alcohol abuse . . . [Full Text of this Article]