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26
J^ils 0. Jacobson and N. Peter Silfverskiold
consumption of alcohol. The variables indicate among other things inability to work
and the need for medical care.
Conditions for tlie investigation
The areas covered by the Alcohol CHnic at the Malmo General Hospital is the
entire city of Malmo with a population of 260,000 (1970). The clinic has an acute
admission ward (open for out-patients from 7 a.m to midnight), an ordinary ward
and a large out-patient clinic. Only voluntary care is offered and most of the
patients come on their own initiative. At night when the acute admission ward is
closed the patients in need of acute care can turn to the psychiatric clinic, but are
often referred the next morning to the alcohol clinic. Only a few patients come to
the psychiatric clinic during the night for alcohol disease and the patients in this
study who have done so are included in the statistics from the alcohol clinic.
The alcohol clinic (and in rare cases the psychiatric clinic) are thus the only
institutions in the city offering acute care for alcohol trouble. We considered it
likely that a patient who had once been to the clinic on his own initiative and
received treatment for his affliction, would return if his trouble became so difficult
that he could not handle himself . The number and the kind of a patient's contacts
with the clinic during a certain time can thus in some way mirror the degree of
difficulty caused by his alcohol consumption, provided he is in or near Malmo.
Material
Male patients at the alcohol clinic were offered to be included in a group where
different methods of treatment would be tried, i.e. hypnosis.
The following categories of patients were excepted: more than 50 years old, with
suspected or evident chronic brain syndrome, with psychoses not released by alcohol
in their anamnesis, and patients who were not residents of Malmo or who were
shortly to leave the city. The patients were informed that total abstinence was the
aim of the treatment and those who were not prepared for this were excluded from
the group. Those accepting were randomly assigned on their first visit to one of the
two groups, group H (hypnosis) or group N (non-hypnosis). Each group consisted of
40 patients.
The
age
of the patients varied between 20 and 50 years. The mean age of group
H was 37-1 years and of group N 38-0 years. The lengfth of the
alcohol anamnesis
was
defined as the number of years the patient declared himself to have had at least two
of the three symptoms: loss of control, need for restorer and blackouts (the latest
factor when the patient had consumed what for him were usual quantities of alcohol).
The mean time for this was in group H 8-5 years, in group N 9-5 years. Thirty-one
patients in each group had had all three symptoms for at least one year. The groups
were also compared concerning
living quarters
and
civil status
and their
sick compensa-
tion class.
In none of those variables was the difference between the groups significant
at the 5% level.
For one year before the treatment started the two groups were compared with
regard to (a) number of
sick compensation days
(a total of 2565 in group H, 2580 in
group N) (b)
visits in a drunk state
to the alcohol clinic and the psychiatric clinic (H =
113, N = 91), (c)
visits in a sober state
to the alcohol clinic (H = 222, N = 155), (d)