Alcohol diagnostic validation for injury-related trauma: findings from a pilot study
File(s)
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Alcohol consumption is a key driver of the burden of violence and injury in South Africa (SA). Hence, we aim to validate various alcohol assessment tools against a blood test to assess their utility for improving national health practice and policy. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional pilot study from 3 to 19 August 2022 at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, SA. This was to test logistics for the time of venous blood centrifugation and validation of alcohol assessment tools used in injured patients ahead of the main validation study. Adults aged 18 years and older, who were injured <8 h before arrival were included. Consent was obtained for venous blood alcohol testing to validate, as the gold standard, against the following: active- and passive breath alcohol testing, clinical screening and a finger prick test. Descriptive statistics were reported for the pilot study. RESULTS: The active breath alcohol test's digital reading and the passive test's 'yes/no' results corresponded well against the venous blood alcohol results. The average time to centrifugation was within the laboratory's 2-h cut-off requirement to preserve the alcohol in the serum. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The pilot study was helpful in identifying challenges with one of the alcohol assessment tools and prevented further costs ahead of the main validation study. We also determined that the selected tertiary hospital site caused a delay in recruiting eligible patients due to other hospital referrals. Hence, the main validation study is in progress at a district-level hospital for a larger sample of eligible patients for testing.
Date Issued
2023
Date Acceptance
2023-11-10
Citation
Digital Health, 2023, 9
ISSN
2055-2076
Publisher
SAGE Publishing
Journal / Book Title
Digital Health
Volume
9
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2023.
Creative Commons License (CC BY 4.0)
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Creative Commons License (CC BY 4.0)
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38053735
Subjects
alcohol assessment tools
alcohol consumption
blood alcohol
breathalyzer
evidentiary breath alcohol testing
injury
South Africa
violence
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States
Date Publish Online
2023-12-03