Alcohol Use Disorder and its Correlates among Health Professionals

Background: Alcohol is commonly used psychoactive drug particularly among adults. Harmful use of alcohol leads to occupational, social and physical impairment. However, studies on Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) among Health Professionals (HPs) remains limited in Ethiopia. Objective: This study aimed to determine prevalence of AUD and to identify its risk factors among HPs working in tertiary teaching hospital, Southwest Ethiopia. Methods: In this study, facility based cross-sectional study design was employed. Pretested, structured, self-administered questionnaire was utilized to collect data. The CAGE instrument was used to screen HPs for AUD. The data were coded, cleaned and analyzed by using SPSS version 16 software program. Variables with p-value <0.05 at multivariate logistic regression were identified to know the risk factors for AUD. Result: Off the total participants (n=334), 41.7% and 34.4% were ever and current users of alcohol respectively. Prevalence of AUD was 8.1%. Eighteen percent of current alcohol users felt the need to cut down. Few of them (5.1%) had the need of alcohol in the morning as an eye opener. The main reason given by participants for alcohol use was “to get relief from stress and exhaustion” (26.1%) followed by “peer pressure” (18.3%), and “for relaxation” (17.4%). Based on the results the results of this study, the odds of AUD were lower among those with higher education, no psychological distress, and no current khat use among HPs in Northwest Ethiopia. Conclusion: HPs identified to have prevalence of AUD the same to the general population. Prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation of AUD find to be crucial. Addressing enabling factors found to be important in this era of alcohol beverage promotions by companies.