[The health costs of alcoholism].

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the economic effect in terms of health costs of alcohol abuse in Spain.

DESIGN

The most up-to-date available, secondary sources of information were used. The period for the costs calculation was a natural year, with the prices adjusted to pesetas in 1996. The focus was based on the prevalence of cases per period. All the information referred to the whole of Spain.

SETTING

Health costs were broken down into out-patient attendance, hospital emergencies, admissions, treatment at special centres and other health expenditure.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS

The total health cost attributable to alcoholism was 177,084 million pesetas, broken down as follows: a) cost of hospital admissions: 93,644 million pesetas (52.88%); b) cost of out-patient attendance: 34,600 million (19.53%); c) cost of treatment at special centres: 18,029 million (10.18%); d) cost of hospital emergencies: 10,481 million (5.91%); and e) other health expenditure: 20,330 million pesetas (11.48%).

CONCLUSIONS

The figures arrived at do not cover the total cost of alcohol abuse, since a conservative approach was adopted. They stand as a minimum of the expenditure in our country. Some are direct costs on health authorities, whereas others can be managed as a cost-opportunity problem.