Home Dermatology High Prevalence of Alcohol Use Disorders in Eczema

High Prevalence of Alcohol Use Disorders in Eczema

Significantly increased odds ratios for alcohol use disorder in eczema after adjustment for age, gender

TUESDAY, April 4, 2017 (HealthDay News) — Patients with eczema have a high prevalence of alcohol use disorders, according to a study published online March 27 in the British Journal of Dermatology.

K. Al-Jefri, from the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust in the United Kingdom, and colleagues conducted an observational cross-sectional study involving 609 patients in five groups: psoriasis, eczema, cutaneous lupus, other inflammatory disorders, and a reference population with skin lesions. They examined the proportion of patients in each group with an alcohol use disorder (AUD).

The researchers found that the prevalence of AUD was 30.6 percent for the psoriasis group, 33.3 percent for the eczema group, 12.3 percent for the cutaneous lupus group, 21.8 percent for the other inflammatory disease group, and 14.3 percent for the non-inflammatory disease group. Compared with the non-inflammatory disease group, the odds ratios for AUD were 1.65 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.86 to 3.17) for psoriasis, 2 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.03 to 3.85) for eczema, 1.03 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.39 to 2.71) for lupus, and 1.32 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.68 to 2.56) for other inflammatory disease, after adjustment for age and gender. Adjustment for Dermatology Life Quality Index further reduced the odds ratios.

“Patients with eczema attending a single site hospital clinic have been shown to have high levels of alcohol use disorders of a similar level to patients with psoriasis and higher than patients with non-inflammatory skin diseases,” the authors write.

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