Use of Medications for Alcohol Use Disorder Improves Outcomes

Reduction seen in incidence of composite outcome of all-cause mortality, return to hospital with MAUD initiation at discharge

By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, April 1, 2024 (HealthDay News) — For patients with alcohol-related hospitalization, discharge initiation of U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved medications for alcohol use disorder (MAUD) is associated with a reduction in the incidence of all-cause mortality or return to hospital within 30 days, according to a study published online March 29 in JAMA Network Open.

Eden Y. Bernstein, M.D., from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues examined the association between discharge MAUD initiation and 30-day posthospitalization outcomes in a cohort study conducted among patients with Medicare Part D who had alcohol-related hospitalizations in 2016.

The study included 6,794 unique individuals representing 9,834 alcohol-related hospitalizations; 2.0 percent of those involved discharge MAUD initiation. The researchers found that after propensity matching, there was a significant reduction in the incidence of the primary outcome (composite of all-cause mortality or return to hospital within 30 days of discharge) with discharge MAUD initiation (incident rate ratio, 0.58). For secondary outcomes except mortality, these findings were consistent (e.g., incident rate ratio for all-cause return to hospital, 0.56); mortality was rare in both groups.

“In this retrospective cohort study of Medicare Part D beneficiaries with alcohol-related hospitalizations, return to hospital within 30 days was common and initiation of MAUD at discharge was associated with a large reduction in return to hospital within 30 days,” the authors write. “These findings support ongoing efforts to increase access to MAUD in the posthospitalization setting.”