Scientific Projects

The Federation is actively seeking research projects in the field of internal medicine from national societies to help establish a collaborative network across Europe. This is being encouraged and supervised by our Scientific Working Group www.efim.org/en/scientific-committee-944  and the Foundation for the Development of Internal Medicine in Europe www.fdime.org  The Alchimie Study below is the current project that is enrolling patients during 2011.

Alchimie Study

The Alchimie Study project, which is promoted by the European Federation of Internal Medicine and the European Foundation of Internal Medicine, aims to investigate the prevalence of alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and other alcohol related diseases among inpatients in medical wards across Europe and to assess the recognition of AUDs by their attending physicians.
The project was developed after the Clinical Research Seminar of the Young Internists Workgroup that was held in Paris in April, 2008. In this meeting the ASMI study was presented. This study examined the prevalence of risky and harmful drinking in Internal Medicine wards in 21 Spanish Hospitals. It was promoted by the Spanish Society of Internal Medicine through the Grupo Español de Estudio de Alcohol y Alcoholismo of the Spanish. Due to its simplicity and interesting results, it quickened the idea of performing the study at the European Level.
The scientific interest of this project is of great value to increase the knowledge and awareness of alcohol related problems in hospitalised patients. Its results can help as well to promote public awareness of the risk of alcohol consumption and improve understanding of alcohol-related diseases. In addition, it can promote contacts with institutions and societies of different countries as well as when performed in collaboration with the Young Internist Workgroup it can enhance the network between young Internists across Europe. All of these are among the aims of the European Foundation of Internal Medicine.
For theses reasons the European Federation of Internal Medicine and the European Foundation are the promoters of the ALCHIMIE STUDY and are giving economical support and promoting its development through National Societies of Internal Medicine.
We ask National Societies to introduce the project to Hospitals that can be interested in performing the study, and to propose a National Coordinator for the project. Local Investigators of Centres that approve to collaborate should send back to the Scientific Board of the ALCHIME PROJECT the “application template”, also included as an annex to this letter. 
The project is scheduled to be performed next October 2010.