DENTISTS outstrip doctors in their affection for alcohol, US data reveal.
In one of the first studies to compare drinking habits across health professions, dentists revealed themselves to be the heaviest drinkers, consuming close to 27 drinks a month.
Nurses came second, downing 21 drinks a month, with pharmacists and doctors — each consuming about 18 drinks a month — the least avid alcohol consumers.
“By nearly every major alcohol-use measure used in this study, dentists were more likely to use and misuse alcohol than most other health care professional groups,” the authors wrote.
Dentists were more likely to be regular and daily alcohol users, and had a higher frequency of heavy episodic drinking in the month before the study.
One reason for the higher rate of alcohol use in dentists might be gender imbalance, the authors speculated. More dentists in the study were men (85%) than in any other health care group, and men in general were heavier alcohol users.
The study also showed alcohol use across the four professions increased with age, a trend noted in earlier research and one that Victorian Doctors Health Program medical director Dr Jack Warhaft said was consistent with local experience.
“Alcohol dependency does tend to present in the 40s and 50s, and that is when we tend to see people at the Victorian Doctors Health Program,” he told Australian Doctor.
Although the study found doctors drank less than the general population, Dr Warhaft said in Australia, alcohol problems among doctors tended to be no different to the general public — 8-10% have a significant alcohol problem.
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