Table 1.

Prevalence of Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome Among Hospitalizations in the Veterans Health Administration during Fiscal Year 2013: Overall and by Subgroup

	Hospitalizations involving AWS, No.	AWS Prevalence % (95% CI)
Overall	26,381	5.8 (5.2–6.4)
Geographic Region
New England	2,106	11.2 (6.9–15.5)
Middle Atlantic	2,081	4.6 (3.3–5.8)
South Atlantic	6,099	5.3 (4.1–6.4)
South	5,470	6.2 (4.7–7.7)
Midwest	5,648	6.1 (4.9–7.3)
West	2,442	5.9 (4.4–7.4)
Northwest	768	5.2 (2.4–8.1)
Southwest	1,767	4.3 (2.8–5.8)
Facility Complexity Level
1a—highest	13,650	5.2 (4.4–5.9)
1b—high	4,741	5.6 (4.4–6.9)
1c—mid-high	5,191	6.8 (5.3–8.2)
2—medium	2,799	6.3 (4.6–7.9)
Intensive care	1,383	3.3 (2.8–3.7)
Admitting specialty
Medical	13,478	4.4 (4.0–4.8)
Psychiatric	12,305	19.0 (17.5–20.4)
Surgical	598	0.7 (0.6–0.8)
Diagnoses
Alcohol-related disorder	25,039	38.3 (35.8–40.8)
Other substance use condition	9,024	19.3 (17.7–20.9)
Suicide attempt	204	15.3 (13.0–17.6)
Liver injury	7,073	13.9 (12.6–15.1)
Seizure	1,870	11.9 (10.7–13.1)
Mental health disorder	17,363	11.6 (10.6–12.7)
Pancreaticobiliary disease	1,655	8.6 (7.7–9.5)
Nutrition, electrolyte, or acid-base disorder	7,949	6.5 (5.9–7.2)
Gastrointestinal tract disorder	7,776	5.1 (4.6–5.6)
Musculoskeletal or soft tissue disorder	8,339	4.8 (4.3–5.3)
Trauma	2,134	4.8 (4.3–5.3)
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease	4,357	4.6 (4.1–5.1)
Cardiac dysrhythmia	2,653	2.8 (2.5–3.1)
Sepsis/shock	919	2.8 (2.5–3.1)
Pneumonia	887	2.4 (2.1–2.7)
Diabetes mellitus	3,278	2.2 (2.0–2.5)
Kidney injury	2,166	1.8 (1.6–2.0)
Cerebrovascular disease	527	1.8 (1.6–2.1)
Myocardial infarction	386	1.7 (1.5–2.0)
Malignancy	830	1.4 (1.2–1.6)
Congestive heart failure	917	1.3 (1.1–1.5)

AWS = Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome, VHA = Veterans Health Administration

Prevalence estimates are adjusted for intraclass correlations using fixed effects at the regional network-level and random effects at the hospital-level