Individuals with alcohol use disorders (AUDs) often have high social and health care needs. However, knowledge gaps exist regarding the service system's ability to identify and treat problems related to harmful alcohol use and dependence in Finland. In her dissertation, Elina Rautiainen, MHSc, examined the social and health service use patterns of individuals with AUDs in relation to care outcomes by using regional electronic social and health care registers. Furthermore, associated direct care costs across the social and health service system were examined.
The dissertation provided new information, especially on the health service use patterns across the treatment system and care costs of individuals with AUDs. This research was part of IMPRO research consortium, funded by the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland.
The results showed that individuals identified through registers had an advanced form of AUD. This study identified associations between access to AUD and mental health treatment and improved care outcomes and decreased care costs. Augmented Naïve Bayesian network (ANB) model was applied to register data to investigate direct effect of different risk factors on care cost accumulation. ANB model identified that a high number of chronic conditions was the main contributor to excess cost of care. These findings indicate that more attention should be paid to the timely treatment of somatic conditions among individuals with AUDs. Electronic health registers are an applicable although currently limited data source for the register-based examination of the effectiveness of the AUD service system. Structured recording of outcomes and care quality measures could improve register-based service-system-wide effectiveness research and care of individuals with AUDs.
The doctoral dissertation of Elina Rautiainen, M.Sc, entitled ”Health service use, care costs, and associated care outcomes of patients with alcohol use disorder in North Karelia, Finland: A register-based study” will be examined at the Faculty of Health Sciences. The opponent will be Professor Sami Pirkola from the University of Tampere and the custos Professor Tiina Laatikainen from the University of Eastern Finland. The public examination will be held in Finnish online on 5 February 2021 starting at 12 noon.
