Impacto do alcoolismo na saúde e na vida social: uma revisão da literatura

Abstract

Alcoholism represents a major social, economic, and health challenge that affects millions of people around the world. Alcohol consumption has been growing rapidly, facilitated by low cost and easy access to all social levels, generating great concern in the academic, therapeutic, and family communities, and in some countries, has led to a more judicious look by governmental actions regarding the issue of alcoholism. In view of the above, the aim of this study was to describe the impact of alcoholism on health and social life, and more specifically to review the history of alcoholism, to detail the effects of alcohol on the individual, to report the implications of alcoholism on social and family life, and to demonstrate public health actions and programs to combat alcoholism. A narrative bibliographic review was carried out in the Virtual Health Library (VHL), where the databases of International Literature on Health Sciences (MEDLINE), Latin American and Caribbean Literature on Health Sciences (LILACS), Cochrane Library, Spanish Bibliographic Index of Health Sciences (IBECS) and Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) were searched. In addition, the United States National Library of Medicine (PubMed) and official documents were searched. The search was conducted from August 2020 to May 2021, selecting studies published in the last ten years. The exclusion criteria were: articles not available in full and duplicate articles, and the inclusion criteria were: alcoholism and health and alcoholism and social and family life. The consequences of alcohol consumption go beyond the damage to the consumer's health. The damage caused by alcohol affects family members, neighbors, colleagues, and other people in their social environment, who are possible victims of someone else's consumption, not their own. Among these consequences are absenteeism, decreased family income, unemployment in the family, violence, destruction of public and/or private property, abuse and neglect, increased health care costs for the family and the state, injuries at work, in traffic, at home, and in public places, impact on the mental health of family members, such as depression, anxiety, childhood traumas due to neglect and abuse.