Lothian hit by massive rise in booze-fuelled mental illness

Published on Thursday 14 May 2009 09:42

THE number of people admitted to hospital with alcohol-related mental problems has seen a big rise in the last five years.

According to the latest figures, more than 650 patients needed hospital care last year because drink had caused them to suffer a mental or behavioural disorder.

The figure is up from 2004, when only 428 were affected.

Although the majority of cases were in adults, there was still cause for concern with 32 teenagers aged 14-17 discharged with the diagnosis in 2008 and a handful of those 13 and younger.

Experts said the rise was symptomatic of the overall alcohol problem, and that psychiatric problems caused by drink placed a huge strain on services.

Dr Jonathan Chick, Edinburgh University's senior lecturer in the school of molecular and clinical medicine – who specialises in issues of alcohol and alcoholism –

said a common problem was a condition known as delirium tremens (DT), where people either choose to or are forced to give up drinking suddenly, and suffer a mixture of hallucinations as a result.

He said: "Alcohol is actually the most dangerous of all drugs to go cold turkey on.

"With DT, people can experience sometimes amusing, but often very unpleasant, hallucinations, which can be very frightening and cause people to perhaps call the police or to behave violently.

"This will make up some of those statistics, with others being people who have drunk so much that either police or ambulance services can't determine if they have perhaps suffered a head injury because of their behaviour."

The statistics, released under Freedom of Information, include admissions from hospitals across the Lothians.

They do not include people with chronic psychiatric problems, and experts said the use of the phrase "acute" in the NHS Lothian definition meant these were cases where more problems came on suddenly.

Tackling alcohol abuse is one of the Scottish Government's priorities. Today it announced 5.3 million worth of funding for the Lothians to support treatment for alcoholics.

Billy Watson, the chief executive of the Scottish Association of Mental Health, said: "We know that there is a close relationship between alcohol problems and mental health.

"People with mental health problems are at raised risk of alcohol problems, and vice versa.

"We also know that the well-being of a whole community can be affected by the health, social and economic consequences of alcohol misuse."

Dr Fiona Watson, consultant psychiatrist at NHS Lothian, said: "We are building on the services we already provide as well as looking to develop new services to help people with alcohol related mental health and behavioural disorders."