Alcohol abusive use increases facial trauma?

BACKGROUND: Trauma is among the main death causes and morbidity in the world and is often related to the use of alcohol and its abuse has reached massive proportions, no matter if the country is developed or not, being considered as public health problem. Since there are very few randomized and prospective studies in literature about the association of facial trauma and the use of alcohol, this study aims to investigate the impact of alcohol use in facial trauma. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This was a prospective and cross sectional study, involving facial trauma patients attended at Oral Maxillofacial Surgery Division of a State Hospital. Variables included patient´s profile, trauma etiology, facial region involved, type of injury and treatment and days of hospitalization. AUDIT test was applied to identify risks and damages of alcohol use and chemical dependence. Absolute distribution, uni and mutilvaried percentages were made for data evaluation. Pearson´s qui-squared and Fisher´s Exact tests were also used. RESULTS: One hundred patients were evaluated. The patient´s mean age was 33.50 years-old, 48% had between 17 and 29 years old, 28% had 30 to 39, and 24% 40 or more. Most of them were male (86%). The most frequent etiology was traffic accident (57%), the extraoral area was most committed (62%), the most frequent type of injury was fractures (78%) and the most affected bone was the mandible (36%). More than half of the patients (53%) had surgical treatment. 38% had their discharge from hospital right after the first attendance. The AUDIT most frequent answer was “moderate use” (46%) and use at risk (39%). There was significant difference between the use of alcohol (AUDIT) and hematoma (0.003) and number of days of hospitalization (p=0.005). CONCLUSIONS: In this study it was not observed association between alcohol consumption using the AUDIT and trauma etiology, but patient victims of traffic accidents were classified as with risk in the scale. Most of the trauma were caused by traffic accidents using motorcycles and occurred in young aged men. Key words:Wounds and injuries, traumatology and alcohol-induced disorders.