CAGE Screening at Emergency Department with Trauma Patients

Abstract

Due to the great evidence between accidents trauma assisted in the emergency department (ED) and the involvement of patients with alcohol, the goal of this work is characterize violence and trauma patients treated in two regional hospitals in a rural area, using the CAGE questionnaires and other questionings. A cross-sectional cohort study was carried out from August 2014 and December 2015, on weekends. 85 individuals, who showed clinical characteristics of alcohol intoxication, were submitted to a socio-demographic and CAGE questionnaires. The data analysis was carried out using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences SPSS 20.0. The 73.5% of the individuals were male, 83% non-white, 61.5% with less than 6 years of formal education, and 57% of men and 68% of women were single. The main sectors of occupation were agriculture (25%), trade and services (27%), followed by students (12%) and only 1.2% of them were unemployed. The vast majority of traumas were caused by motorcycles (80%), followed by car accidents (7%). The results obtained with the CAGE questionnaire was surprising since 38.2% of the interviewees scored two or more points, of those, 10.7% answered affirmatively three or more questions, which indicates a severe risk of alcohol consumption. Data obtained in our study suggest a strong association between traumas and alcohol use. The alarming number of males, motorcyclists, with low educational and socioeconomic levels, should be taken into account in order to improve public healthcare policies and trauma assistance practices in the ED.