Alcohol Misuse and Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract Turner AP, Hawkins EJ, Haselkorn JK, Kivlahan DR. Alcohol misuse and multiple sclerosis. Objective To describe the prevalence of alcohol misuse and medical advice to reduce drinking in a national sample of veterans with multiple sclerosis (MS). Design Cross-sectional cohort study linking computerized medical record information to mailed survey data from 2004 through 2006. Setting Veterans Health Administration (VHA). Participants Two thousand six hundred fifty-five of 4929 veterans with MS who received services in VHA between 2004 and 2006 and also a survey questionnaire (53.9% response rate). Interventions Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures Demographic information, Short-Form 12-Item Health Survey Mental Component Summary and Physical Component Summary, Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test Consumption questions, and questions assessing depressive symptoms and the receipt of alcohol-related advice from a medical professional. Results Among all survey respondents with MS, the prevalence of alcohol misuse for the sample was 13.9% (confidence interval [CI], 12.5–15.2), with 11.9% (CI, 10.6–13.2) and 2.0% (CI, 1.4–2.5) of participants scoring in the mild/moderate and severe range of alcohol misuse, respectively. In contrast to community samples there was no difference in prevalence by sex. In multivariate logistic regression, age younger than 60 years (