Affecting Factors for Continuing Outpatient Care After Inpatient Care for Patients with Alcohol Dependence in Korea: A Population-based Study

Abstract

Alcohol-dependent patients face a substantial risk of relapse after inpatient care in their lives. The continuing outpatient care after intensive inpatient care is an important role to reduce the risk of relapse. However, there has been relatively little research on the affecting factors of continuing care. This study aimed to identify the continuous outpatient visit rate and determine factors to affect the continuous outpatient visit after discharge. A continuous outpatient visit is defined as an outpatient visit that is made at least once every 6 months. A total of 18,835 alcohol-dependent patients were followed up for 6 months after discharge. We performed multiple logistic regression to analyze the association between continuous outpatient visit and patient’s characteristics. Only 8.3% of patients received continuous outpatient care within 6 months of their discharge. Patients who were younger, male, and under medicaid were less likely to make post-discharge outpatient visits on a continuous basis. Effort needs to be exterted to provide adequate discharge education programs and to strengthen community services for these patients.