The Prevalence of Alcoholism in a Community General Hospital
ROBERT A. MOORE M.D.1
1 Medical Director, Mesa Vista Hospital, 7850 Vista Hill Ave., San Diego, Calif. 92123 and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, Calif
The Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST), medical histories, and diagnoses were employed to determine the percentage of alcoholics in a general hospital. Of 200 patients, 18 percent of the men and 5.5 percent of the women were diagnosed as alcoholic; 3.5 percent of the rest were questionable. The author believes that a simple screening test like the MAST provides a more sensitive measure of alcoholism in a general hospital population than do medical work-ups and physicians' diagnoses.
