Summary

Experience using the Balearic Islands Risk of Alcohol Poisoning Scale (EBRIA)

Jordi Puiguriguer-Ferrando^1-3, Juan Ortega-Pérez^1-3, Catalina Homar-Amengual^1-3, Guillermo Frontera-Juan⁴, Bernardino Comas-Díaz¹, Bernardino Barceló-Martín^2,3,5

Affiliation of the authors

¹Servicio de Urgencias de Adultos, Hospital Universitario Son Espases, Palma de Mallorca, Spain.²Unidad de Toxicología Clínica, Hospital Universitario Son Espases, Palma de Mallorca, Spain. ³Grupo de Trabajo en Toxicología del Área de Neurociencias. Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Baleares (IdISBA), Palma de Mallorca, Spain. ⁴Unidad Soporte Metodológico. Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Baleares (IdISBA), Palma de Mallorca, Spain. ⁵Servicio de Análisis Clínicos, Hospital Universitario Son Espases, Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

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Puiguriguer-Ferrando J, Ortega-Pérez J, Homar-Amengual C, Frontera-Juan G, Comas-Díaz B, Barceló-Martín B. Experience using the Balearic Islands Risk of Alcohol Poisoning Scale (EBRIA). Rev Esp Urg Emerg. 2023;2:90–5

Summary

BACKGROUND. Alcohol abuse is common in our community. It can lead to acute alcohol poisoning (AAP) and generate serious problems of emergency department overcrowding in certain seasons, mainly in areas where tourism and leisure opportunities are concentrated.
OBJECTIVE. To assess the ability of a risk scale to discriminate between mild and serious cases of AAP attended in a hospital
emergency department.
METHODS. Prospective analysis of the performance of the Balearic Islands Risk for Alcohol Poisoning Scale (EBRIA, the acronym for the Spanish name) in patients with AAP between June 1 and August 31, 2015. Clinical variables of patients with EBRIA scores of 0 and more than 0 were compared to determine whether the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) could identify mild cases.
RESULTS. A total of 490 patients were included. Their mean (SD) age was 28.6 (14.31) years, 8.77% were underaged drinkers, 211 (43.1%) were British, and 188 (38.3%) were Spanish. Two hundred fifty-one (51.3%) had EBRIA scores over 0 (2.17% of all patients attended for any reason). On average, patients with EBRIA scores over 0 had longer stays than those with scores of 0 (6 hours 36 minutes vs 2 hours 18 minutes, respectively), and they were more often hospitalized (15 patients vs none) or had computed tomography brain scans ordered (32.6% vs 0.4%) (P<.0001). The correlation between EBRIA scores and the studied variables was high and the AUC reflecting the score’s ability to discriminate mild cases was 0.876 (95% CI, 0. 83-0.92).
CONCLUSIONS. The EBRIA scale can help to distinguish between AAP cases of lesser (EBRIA, 0) and greater (EBRIA score over 0) complexity, helping to predict resource requirements.