Hospital admissions for alcohol-related problems in concomitance with weekends, New Year’s Eve and Christmas Eve: Myth or reality?

This retrospective observational study was carried out by searching the database of the laboratory information system for identifying all requests for alcohol testing placed from emergency departments and intensive care units of the University Hospital of Verona between June 29th, 2012 and December 31st, 2018. The study population consisted of 7488 patients. The number of alcohol tests was more than double in concomitance with New Year’s Eve than in the rest of the year (7.6±6.1 vs 3.1±2.8 requests/day; P<0.001), whereas blood alcohol concentration was similar (1.55 vs 1.12 g/L; P=0.308). The risk of measuring alcohol concentrations >0.1 g/L and >1.0 g/L was 1.9-fold and 1.6-fold higher in concomitance with New Year’s Eve. In multivariate analysis, younger age, female sex and alcohol testing during New Year’s Eve remained significant predictors of alcohol concentrations >0.1 g/L and >1.0 g/L. The requests for alcohol testing were similar in concomitance with Christmas Eve and in other periods of the year, whilst number of requests (4.0±3.2 vs 2.8±2.5 requests/day; P<0.001) and concentration (1.37 vs 0.77 g/L; P<0.001) were higher during weekends than in other weekdays.