Should a Patient Who Requests Alcohol Detoxification Be Admitted or Treated as Outpatient?
The Hospitalist. 2016 March;2016(03):
March 16, 2016 | The Hospitalist
Sadie Trammell Velasquez, MD ; Kanapa Kornsawad, MD ; University Of Texas Health Science Center At San Antonio
Key Points
- Not all patients presenting for alcohol detoxification need to be admitted.
- Tools that may assist the hospitalist in determining inpatient versus outpatient therapy include the PAWSS tool and an initial CIWA score.
- Although PAWSS was designed to identify medically ill hospitalized patients at risk for developing complicated AWS, it may be a potential tool to estimate risk for complicated AWS when determining whether to admit patients to the hospital for detoxification.
- Only 20% of patients with alcohol withdrawal syndrome will develop severe symptoms of AWS.
Additional Reading
- Stephens JR, Liles AE, Dancel R, Gilchrist M, Kirsch J, DeWalt DA. Who needs inpatient detox? Development and implementation of a hospitalist protocol for the evaluation of patients for alcohol detoxification. J Gen Intern Med. 2014;29(4):587-593.
- Maldonado JR, Sher Y, Ashouri JF, et al. The “prediction of alcohol withdrawal severity scale” (PAWSS): systematic literature review and pilot study of a new scale for the prediction of complicated alcohol withdrawal syndrome. Alcohol. 2014;48(4):375-390.
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