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Alcohol dependency-related excess mortality more common in women

Annualized death rates for alcohol-dependent women were found to be nearly five times higher than among women in the general population, according to study results. In addition, treatment for alcohol dependency was not found to have a protective effect against excess mortality in either men or women.

“Clinical datahave revealed a higher proportion of individuals [with alcohol dependency] who have died than among the general population of the same age,” Ulrich John, PhD, director of the Institute of Epidemiology and Social Medicine at the University of Greifswald in Germany, and corresponding author of the research, said in a press release.

 

Ulrich John

In determining whether “specialized alcoholism treatment” affected survival rates in the general population, John and colleagues used longitudinal descriptive data from the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) because, “for ethical reasons, no controlled trials are possible,” John said in the press release.

The researchers analyzed a random sample of 4,070 German CIDI respondents aged 18 to 64 years. Of these, they identified 153 alcohol-dependent respondents, successfully following vital status among 149 of them (119 men; 30 women) for 14 years.

Baseline data included the respondents’ answers to the German version of the CIDI, alcohol dependency criteria as listed in the DSM-IV, and any other psychiatric disorders described in the DSM-IV. The primary predictors of premature death included inpatient detoxification treatment for alcohol dependency; severity of alcohol dependency; alcohol-related problems, and self-rated poor general health.

The researchers determined that annualized death rates for alcohol-dependent respondents were 4.6 times higher for women and 1.9 times high for men vs. the age- and gender-specific general population.

“The mean age at death was 60 for females and 58 for males, both of which are about 20 years lower than the mean age at death among the general population,” John said. The researchers also found that inpatient alcohol dependency treatment programs did not have a “sufficient protective effect” against premature death, and because of their high excess mortality rates, further research focus should be “placed on women.”

Disclosure: Dr. John reports no relevant financial disclosures.