Alcohol
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Randomized Controlled Trial
The Chinese version of the Addiction Severity Index (ASI-C): reliability, validity, and responsiveness in Chinese patients with alcohol dependence.
We evaluated the reliability, validity, and responsiveness of the Chinese version of the 5th edition Addiction Severity Index (ASI-C-5) in Chinese male alcohol-dependent inpatients. Three hundred and fifty-four inpatients with alcohol dependence from five regions of China were interviewed in person by five trained interviewers using the ASI-C-5. Responses were then analyzed for internal consistency reliability, discriminant validity, criterion validity, and responsiveness. ⋯ The correlation coefficient between the alcohol dependence composite score of ASI-C-5 and the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) was 0.69 (p < 0.01), indicating good criterion validity. The frequency of extreme scores was low, except for significant floor effects in the "Drugs" and "Legal Status" domains. Collectively, these findings suggest that the ASI-C-5 exhibited strong reliability, validity, and responsiveness in Chinese male alcohol-dependent inpatients.
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Comparative Study
Alcohol intoxication in road traffic accidents leads to higher impact speed difference, higher ISS and MAIS, and higher preclinical mortality.
Alcohol is one of the most important personal risk factors for serious and fatal injuries, contributing to approximately one third of all deaths from accidents. It is also described that alcohol intoxication leads to a higher mortality in the clinical course. In this study, we hypothesized that alcohol intoxication leads to different accident kinematics, a higher ISS (Injury Severity Score), and higher preclinical mortality compared to sober patients. ⋯ Regarding the relative speed at impact (Δv for motorized drivers, vehicle collision speed for pedestrians and bikers), there was a significant higher difference for BAC positive patients (30 ± 20) compared to the BAC negative patients (25 ± 19, p < 0.0001). Alcohol intoxication in trauma patients leads to higher preclinical mortality, higher impact speed difference, and higher injury severity. The subgroup analysis for different alcohol concentrations shows no difference in ISS, MAIS, and relative speed, but a correlation of increasing age of patients with higher alcohol concentrations.
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Ethanol has been known to affect various behavioral parameters in experimental animals, even several hours after ethanol (EtOH) is absent from blood circulation, in the period known as hangover. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of acute ethanol hangover on motor performance in association with the brain cortex energetic metabolism. Evaluation of motor performance and brain cortex mitochondrial function during alcohol hangover was performed in mice 6 hours after a high ethanol dose (hangover onset). ⋯ Quantification of the mitochondrial transmembrane potential indicated that ethanol injected animals presented 17% less ability to maintain the polarized condition as compared with controls. These results indicate that a clear decrease in proton motive force occurs in brain cortex mitochondria during hangover conditions. We can conclude that a decreased motor performance observed in the hangover group of animals could be associated with brain cortex mitochondrial dysfunction and the resulting impairment of its energetic metabolism.
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Alcohol and chronic stress exposure, especially during adolescence, can lead to an increased risk in adulthood of developing alcohol use disorders. To date, however, no study has assessed the potential long-term effects of chronic intermittent and unpredictable ethanol (EtOH) exposure in mice chronically stressed beginning in adolescence on brain function and anxiety-like behaviors in adulthood. In particular, alterations in function of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), a brain region heavily implicated in anxiety-related behaviors and altered plasticity following EtOH exposure, may play a key role in the pathological responses to chronic stress and EtOH. ⋯ CSI-CUS-EtOH exposure, regardless of age, produced blunted expression of long-term potentiation (LTP) in the dlBNST compared with CSI-CUS-Sham mice. This study demonstrates age-dependent effects of chronic unpredictable ethanol exposure in chronically stressed mice on anxiety-like behaviors during adulthood. Further, CSI-CUS-EtOH exposure results in blunted LTP expression in the adult dlBNST.
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A relevant number of trauma patients are intoxicated with alcohol at admission in trauma centers. Meanwhile, some studies provide data suggesting a profound influence of ethanol on the posttraumatic clinical course; others could not confirm these findings. Knowledge of the influence of ethanol in a multiple trauma cohort is lacking. ⋯ Blood alcohol level at the time of admission is not a valuable marker for worse or improved outcome in multiple trauma patients. There were no ethanol-related differences concerning overall injury severity; however, more severe abdominal injuries were found in alcohol-intoxicated patients. There was no increased risk for posttraumatic complications in primarily alcohol-intoxicated multiple trauma patients.