The alcoholic patients present a high mortality. The rate of mortality of the patients who follow an ambulatory specialized treatment and the one from those who are admitted for organic pathologies related to their alcohol consumption is known. However, it is unknown to us if the alcoholics with a more psychiatric profile also pass away prematurely.

To research on the clinical characteristics, therapeutic evolution, survival and factors that can better predict their subsequent mortality.

Longitudinal monitoring at 14 years of a cohort of 91 alcoholic patients admitted in 1993 for detoxification in a Psychiatry ward and that followed a subsequent ambulatory treatment.

Presented with psychiatric co morbidity (40,6%) (N = 37) and underwent in-hospital detoxification on several occasions (78%) (N = 71). At 14 years the rate of mortality has been of 34,1% (N = 31). The patients that passed away showed more frequently cognitive deterioration and resident situation. They also received antidepressants more frequently, had less family support and usually suffered an alcohol consumption.

The patients that are admitted in Psychiatry for detoxification are relatively young, with psychiatric co morbidity, cognitive deterioration, serious social and familiar problematic and repeated precedents of failure with few adherence. The mortality of these patients is between the one of ambulatory patients and the one of those who were admitted for an organic cause, being the age when dying, younger than those who were admitted for organic causes.