Am J Psychiatry 1975; 132:407-412
Copyright © 1975 by American Psychiatric Association
Outpatient alcohol detoxification: initial findings on 564 patients
DJ Feldman, EM Pattison, LC Sobell, T Graham and MB Sobell
The authors report on a large-scale outpatient alcohol detoxification
program, presenting a clinical rationale for outpatient detoxification,
describing the program method, and giving initial evaluation data on the
first 564 patients. Only 47 percent of the patients required
detoxification, and only 19 percent of these required inpatient care. The
majority of the patients successfully completed outpatient detoxification;
half of these continued in the related rehabilitation program. There were
no fatalities. The authors believe the results support the utility of
outpatient detoxification as a cost-effective alternative to inpatient
detoxification for the majority of acute alcoholics.
