SynthesisDrug and alcohol review2025
A systematic review of the economic evidence surrounding the management of alcohol withdrawal.
Synthesis in Drug and alcohol review, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A systematic review of the economic evidence surrounding the management of alcohol withdrawal.Drug and alcohol review · 2025Pooled it
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
issuesAlcohol withdrawal syndrome (AWS) is a medical emergency associated with lengthy hospital stays and an increased frequency of alcohol-related hospital admissions. Rising numbers of alcohol-related health presentations and limited resources of alcohol treatment services necessitate the implementation of both cost-effective and clinically effective interventions. APPROACH: A systematic literature search was conducted to review the economic evidence base for AWS interventions. A search of PubMed, Medline, Embase, Web-of-Science and Proquest identified 6347 articles. Following duplicate removal, 5250 English language papers were screened; 58 papers met eligibility criteria. Fifty papers were excluded at full-text screening; 8 papers were included. A novel logic model describing factors impacting clinical and cost-effectiveness of AWS management was developed. KEY
findingsThe United States (3), the United Kingdom (3), France (1) and Switzerland (1) based studies took primarily a health sector perspective, with most reporting on cost savings, rather than full health economic evaluations. Both patient- or symptom-specific guidelines and outpatient treatment reduce service costs in select patient populations, without impacting on treatment outcomes. Additional psychological outpatient support may also be a cost-effective addition to treatment. IMPLICATIONS: Where clinically suitable, early transition of AWS treatment to outpatient settings, alongside implementation of patient- or symptom-specific treatment guidelines, both may improve the cost-effectiveness of alcohol treatment services. Significant heterogeneity among current study methodology, patient population and poor-quality economic evidence means further studies are required.
conclusionTo develop a more robust understanding of cost and clinical-effectiveness, we propose a transdisciplinary research agenda between health economics, academic expertise and AWS services to address the current evidence gap in this area.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.