Prevalence of alcohol use disorders among under- and post-graduate healthcare students in Italy

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0175719
• Publication Date: 2017-04-24T17:26:36Z
• Authors: Monica Lamberti; Francesco Napolitano; Paola Napolitano; Antonio Arnese; Vincenzo Crispino; Gianclaudio Panar...; Gabriella Di Gius...
• Keywords: Adult; Male; Students, Medical; Alcohol Drinking; Science; Medicine (all); Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (all); Agricultural and Biological Sciences (all); Body Mass Index; Young Adult; 03 medical and health sciences; Risk-Taking; 0302 clinical medicine; Prevalence; Humans; Q; R; Internship and Residency; Health Surveys; 3. Good health; Cross-Sectional Studies; Italy; Medicine; Female; Alcohol-Related Disorders; Research Article

A cross-sectional study was carried out on 641 medical students, 359 students attending a degree course in the healthcare professions, and 500 resident physicians, all undergoing health surveillance at the ambulatory of the Division of Occupational Medicine, Second University of Naples, Italy. 76.1% of the participants drank alcohol, with 85.5% of medical students, 77.4% of resident physicians, and 63% of healthcare-professions students reporting regular alcohol use. In the whole sample, the mean Audit-C score was 1.6 for men and 1.1 for women; only 5.5% of men and 7.1% of women had a hazardous alcohol consumption with an Audit-C score of respectively ≥4 and ≥3. Multivariate regression modeling revealed that regular alcohol use was more likely in individuals who were men, were younger, had a lower body-mass index, were active smokers, were habitual coffee drinkers, and who were resident physicians or medical students rather than healthcare-professions students. This finding identifies a need to assess alcohol use in medical-profession workers in order to identify risky behavior early on and to carry out rapidly effective preventive and curative interventions.