Prioritization of methods for assessing alcohol use in emergency room settings: findings from a qualitative study
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Limited alcohol-related injury data in hospital settings globally underscore the need for routine monitoring to inform policy formulation for injury prevention, especially in addressing violence and road traffic injuries. COVID-19 and the related alcohol sales bans in South Africa in 2020–21 brought the impact of alcohol on trauma presenting to health facilities into sharp focus and highlighted the absence of practical, cost-effective, and accurate alcohol diagnostic tools in emergency rooms This qualitative study aims to identify valuable alcohol-related information for stakeholders to inform a validation study of alcohol diagnostics for injury-related trauma. We conducted five virtual focus group discussions (FGDs) with four groups of stakeholders: clinicians (n = 9), academics (n = 4), hospital and other operational staff (n = 6), and policymakers (n = 4). FGDs were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Coding and thematic analyses were conducted using NVivo version 12. Results highlighted the belief that alcohol places a burden on the healthcare system and plays a significant role in injury causation and mortality. Currently, robust alcohol assessment in emergency rooms is lacking. Despite acknowledging that quantified blood alcohol levels would not change acute clinical management, there was consensus regarding the need-to-know patients’ alcohol usage to inform long-term management and broader public health objectives. Findings support plans to validate the efficacy of selected alcohol diagnostic tools in public hospital settings and to further test their feasibility and utility at a national level.
Date Issued
2025-06-01
Date Acceptance
2025-03-17
Citation
Health Policy and Planning, 2025, 40 (5), pp.548-555
ISSN
0268-1080
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Start Page
548
End Page
555
Journal / Book Title
Health Policy and Planning
Volume
40
Issue
5
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press in association with The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site–for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/40098485
PII: 8083011
Subjects
Alcohol
diagnostic
injuries
road traffic
surveillance
violence
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Article Number
czaf016
Date Publish Online
2025-03-18