Characterization of alcohol consumption in a family doctor's office. Municipality of Marti.

Abstract

Nowadays, alcoholism is considered a tragedy of the humankind that have gained strength in the last decades. The consumption of alcoholic beverages and its repercussions are considered as one of the most severe sociosanitary problems affronted by western societies.We carried out an epidemiologic, observational, descriptive study of 558 patients older than 15 years old assisted at the family doctor's office N o . 30, in Hoyo Colorado , Healthcare area of the municipality of Marti , in the period January 2004- January 2005. Our objective was contributing to the knowledge of some characteristics of the alcoholic-beverages consumption in this area.All the inhabitants with more than 15 years old answered an inquiry and the information was completed with an structured interview made to all the detected consumers of alcoholic beverages and to key informants of the community. With the obtained data we formed a database with the help of the SPSS program, version 10.0. The data were processed and analyzed taking into account the measures for qualitative and quantitative variables. As a result, we arrived to the conclusion that the predominant age-group among the alcohol consumers was the group of the persons between 35 and 44 years old, male sex and high school scholarship. Most of them were workers and the social drinker is the most frequent. Familiar crisis are very common among drinkers.