Associations between mental health & substance use treatment and alcohol use progression and recovery among US women drinkers

• Published in: PloS one 2024-07, Vol.19 (7), p.e0306820
• Main Authors: Young, Andrea S, Reboussin, Beth A, Riehm, Kira, Mojtabai, Ramin, Green, Kerry M, O'Gorman, Emily T, Susukida, Ryoko, Amin-Esmaeili, Masoumeh, Crum, Rosa M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Alcohol Drinking - epidemiology; Alcohol use; Alcoholism - epidemiology; Alcohols; Analysis; Biology and Life Sciences; Care and treatment; Comorbidity; Data analysis; Drinking of alcoholic beverages; Drug use; Emergency medical care; Epidemiology; Female; Females; Gender differences; Health; Health insurance; Health services; Humans; Information management; Latent class analysis; Medical care; Medicine and Health Sciences; Mental disorders; Mental Health; Mental health care; Middle Aged; Physical Sciences; Prospective Studies; Psychological aspects; Psychologists; Public health; Recovery (Medical); Remission; Sexes; Social Sciences; Substance abuse; Substance abuse treatment; Substance use; Substance-Related Disorders - epidemiology; Substance-Related Disorders - psychology; Surveys; United States - epidemiology; Utilization; Women; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0306820

Alcohol use has profound public health impact on women; however, modifiable factors that may influence alcohol use progression/recovery, including health service utilization, are understudied in women. To investigate the association between mental health (MH) and substance use (SU) treatment with alcohol use progression and recovery among women who currently use alcohol or have in the past. This study is a secondary data analysis of prospective data from waves 1 (2001-2002) and 2 (2004-2005) of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC; a US-nationally representative sample of adults). The analytic sample was limited to women who reported past or current alcohol use at wave 1 (N = 15,515). Latent transition analysis (LTA) examined whether receiving SU/MH treatment in the year prior to wave 1 was associated with transitioning between three empirically-derived stages of alcohol involvement (no, moderate, and severe problems classes), between Waves 1 and 2 adjusting for possible confounders using propensity score weight. Compared to White female drinkers, female drinkers who were from Black, Hispanic, or other races were less likely to receive SU/MH treatment (p-values ≤. 001). SU/MH treatment in the year prior to wave 1 was associated with transitioning from the moderate problems class to the no problems class between Waves 1 and 2 (p-value = .04). Receipt of SU or MH treatment among women, was associated with a higher likelihood of remission from moderate alcohol use problems to no problems over time. Future research, including investigation into treatment characteristics (e.g., frequency, duration, type) should further explore why women initially experiencing severe alcohol use problems did not experience similar remission.