Anastasia Månsson, Anna-Karin Danielsson, Hugo Sjöqvist, Toivo Glatz, Andreas Lundin, Sara Wallhed Finn
{"title":"Pharmacotherapy for alcohol use disorder among adults with medical disorders in Sweden.","authors":"Anastasia Månsson, Anna-Karin Danielsson, Hugo Sjöqvist, Toivo Glatz, Andreas Lundin, Sara Wallhed Finn","doi":"10.1186/s13722-024-00471-9","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Alcohol-attributable medical disorders are prevalent among individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD). However, there is a lack of research on prescriptions of pharmacological treatment for AUD in those with comorbid conditions. This study aims to investigate the utilization of pharmacological treatment (acamprosate, disulfiram and naltrexone) in specialist care among patients with AUD and comorbid medical diagnoses.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>This was a descriptive register-based Swedish national cohort study including 132,728 adults diagnosed with AUD (N = 270,933) between 2007 and 2015. The exposure was alcohol-attributable categories of comorbid medical diagnoses. Odds ratios (OR) were calculated using mixed-effect logistic regression analyses for any filled prescription of acamprosate, disulfiram or oral naltrexone within 12 months post AUD diagnosis.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Individuals with comorbid alcohol-attributable medical diagnoses had lower odds of filling prescriptions for any type of AUD pharmacotherapy compared to those without such comorbidities. Cardiovascular (OR = 0.41 [95% CI: 0.39-0.43]), neurological (OR = 0.52 [95% CI: 0.48-0.56]) and gastrointestinal (OR = 0.57 [95% CI: 0.54-0.60]) diseases were associated with the lowest rates of prescription receipt. The presence of diagnoses which are contraindications to AUD pharmacotherapy did not fully explain the low prescription rate.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>There is a substantial underutilization of AUD pharmacotherapy in patients with AUD and comorbid medical disorders in specialist care. Increasing the provision of pharmacotherapy to this group of patients is essential and may prevent morbidity and mortality. There is a need to further understand barriers to medical treatment both from the patient and prescriber perspective.</p>","PeriodicalId":54223,"journal":{"name":"Addiction Science & Clinical Practice","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11103816/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Addiction Science & Clinical Practice","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s13722-024-00471-9","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"SUBSTANCE ABUSE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Alcohol-attributable medical disorders are prevalent among individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD). However, there is a lack of research on prescriptions of pharmacological treatment for AUD in those with comorbid conditions. This study aims to investigate the utilization of pharmacological treatment (acamprosate, disulfiram and naltrexone) in specialist care among patients with AUD and comorbid medical diagnoses.
Methods: This was a descriptive register-based Swedish national cohort study including 132,728 adults diagnosed with AUD (N = 270,933) between 2007 and 2015. The exposure was alcohol-attributable categories of comorbid medical diagnoses. Odds ratios (OR) were calculated using mixed-effect logistic regression analyses for any filled prescription of acamprosate, disulfiram or oral naltrexone within 12 months post AUD diagnosis.
Results: Individuals with comorbid alcohol-attributable medical diagnoses had lower odds of filling prescriptions for any type of AUD pharmacotherapy compared to those without such comorbidities. Cardiovascular (OR = 0.41 [95% CI: 0.39-0.43]), neurological (OR = 0.52 [95% CI: 0.48-0.56]) and gastrointestinal (OR = 0.57 [95% CI: 0.54-0.60]) diseases were associated with the lowest rates of prescription receipt. The presence of diagnoses which are contraindications to AUD pharmacotherapy did not fully explain the low prescription rate.
Conclusion: There is a substantial underutilization of AUD pharmacotherapy in patients with AUD and comorbid medical disorders in specialist care. Increasing the provision of pharmacotherapy to this group of patients is essential and may prevent morbidity and mortality. There is a need to further understand barriers to medical treatment both from the patient and prescriber perspective.
期刊介绍:
Addiction Science & Clinical Practice provides a forum for clinically relevant research and perspectives that contribute to improving the quality of care for people with unhealthy alcohol, tobacco, or other drug use and addictive behaviours across a spectrum of clinical settings.
Addiction Science & Clinical Practice accepts articles of clinical relevance related to the prevention and treatment of unhealthy alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use across the spectrum of clinical settings. Topics of interest address issues related to the following: the spectrum of unhealthy use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs among the range of affected persons (e.g., not limited by age, race/ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation); the array of clinical prevention and treatment practices (from health messages, to identification and early intervention, to more extensive interventions including counseling and pharmacotherapy and other management strategies); and identification and management of medical, psychiatric, social, and other health consequences of substance use.
Addiction Science & Clinical Practice is particularly interested in articles that address how to improve the quality of care for people with unhealthy substance use and related conditions as described in the (US) Institute of Medicine report, Improving the Quality of Healthcare for Mental Health and Substance Use Conditions (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2006). Such articles address the quality of care and of health services. Although the journal also welcomes submissions that address these conditions in addiction speciality-treatment settings, the journal is particularly interested in including articles that address unhealthy use outside these settings, including experience with novel models of care and outcomes, and outcomes of research-practice collaborations.
Although Addiction Science & Clinical Practice is generally not an outlet for basic science research, we will accept basic science research manuscripts that have clearly described potential clinical relevance and are accessible to audiences outside a narrow laboratory research field.