Binge Drinking Patients and Effects on Staff Literature review

Binge Drinking Patients and Effects on Staff - Literature review Example Although the A&E attendances caused because of alcohol consumption may occur any time throughout the day, yet most of them happen during weekends and at nights when the tendency of people to consume alcohol is maximal (Pirmohamed et al., 2000). The male attendances outnumber the female attendances by more than twice and most of these attendees are young adults lesser than 40 years of age, which suggests that a vast majority of binge drinkers are young adults (Pirmohamed et al., 2000). The tendency of being involved in the alcohol-related violence in men is twice as much as that in women. 50 per cent of the injuries are related to neck and head and almost 25 per cent of the victims are hospitalized (Wright and Kariya, 1997). Binge drinking is one of the main causes of physical violence and verbal abuse of the healthcare professionals serving in the A&E departments. The effects of patients with the effects of binge drinking appearing in the A&E departments on the staff have been measur ed in different countries and most of the research studies have invariably estimated high level of danger and risks for the staff. In Australia, 2.3 per cent of the overall burden of disease could be attributed to alcohol in the year 2003 that was equivalent to 61091 life years adjusted for disability (Harvard et al., 2011). The burden of harm caused by binge drinking in Australia has been found to be disproportionately high in the rural areas as compared to the urban areas. Departments that are usually affected the most are the inner city departments and the healthcare professionals assuming the maximal risk of assaults are nurses and male doctors. The healthcare providers in general and the staff at the emergency departments in particular have many concerns of safety while dealing with the binge drinkers. One of the nurses interviewed by Gunasekara et al. (2011) expressed these concerns in these words, â€Å"I