The clinical implication of psychiatric illnesses in patients with alcoholic liver disease: an analysis of US hospitals

In this study, we evaluate the clinical impact of psychiatric illnesses (PI) on the hospital outcomes of patients admitted with alcoholic liver disease (ALD). From the National Inpatient Sample from 2012–2017, patients with alcoholic cirrhosis or alcoholic hepatitis were selected and stratified using the presence/absence of PI (which was a composite of psychiatric conditions). The cases were propensity score-matched to PI-absent controls and were compared to the following endpoints: mortality, death due to suicide, length of stay (LOS), hospitalization charges, and hepatic complications. After matching, there were 122,907 PI with and 122,907 without PI. Those with PI were younger (51.8 vs. 51.9 years p = 0.02) and more likely to be female (39.2 vs. 38.7% p = 0.01); however, there was no difference in race. Patients with PI had lower rates of alcoholic cirrhosis but higher rates of alcoholic hepatitis/alcoholic hepatic steatosis. In multivariate, patients with PI had lower rates of all-cause mortality (aOR 0.51 95%CI 0.49–0.54); however, they experienced higher rates of deaths due to suicide (aOR 3.00 95%CI 1.56–5.78) and had longer LOS (aOR 1.02 95%CI 1.01–1.02). Presence of PI in ALD patients is associated with prolonged hospital stay and higher rates deaths due to suicide.