The relationship of alcoholism and alcohol consumption to all-cause mortality in forty-one-year follow-up of the Swedish REBUS sample (2015)

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of alcoholism, alcohol consumption amount, and alcohol consumption pattern on mortality in a general population sample.
Method: This study used a 1970 prospective population sample (double-phase random sample) of 2,300 individuals ages 18-65 years in Stockholm County, which was also linked to mortality registers. A total of 1,895 individuals participated in a semi-structured, baseline psychiatric interview with a psychiatrist and social worker. Alcoholism and other mental disorders were recorded according to the eighth revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-8). Information on the usual amount and frequency of alcohol consumption was collected at the psychiatric interview. Mortality up to year 2011 was assessed with Cox proportional hazard regression models.
Results: At baseline, there were 65 men and 21 women diagnosed with alcoholism. During follow-up, there were 873 deaths in the study population of 1,895. Alcoholism was associated with increased mortality rate. Former drinkers, but not never-drinkers, also had increased risk for mortality compared with moderate drinkers. We found no associations between heavy consumption and mortality. Frequent heavy episodic drinking was uncommon but related to mortality before, but not after, adjusting for an alcoholism diagnosis.
Conclusions: Our results demonstrated that alcoholism - but not a reported high consumption of alcohol or frequent heavy episodic drinking - predicted a long-term risk of death.