Elsevier

Addictive Behaviors

Volume 29, Issue 1, January 2004, Pages 221-223
Addictive Behaviors

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Only one in three people with alcohol abuse or dependence ever seek treatment

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0306-4603(03)00077-7Get rights and content

Abstract

The proportion of respondents who had a lifetime diagnosis of alcohol abuse or dependence who ever attended addiction treatment was determined using data from a Canadian population survey. Only one in three of these respondents had ever attended treatment for their alcohol concerns. Respondents' age and severity of alcohol problem (alcohol abuse versus dependence) were significantly associated with addiction treatment attendance.

Introduction

Previous studies have noted that few individuals with alcohol concerns ever access treatment (including talking to an M.D. or attending Alcoholics Anonymous; Burton & Williamson, 1995, Ogborne & DeWitt, 1999, Poulin et al., 1997). Two of these studies Burton & Williamson, 1995, Ogborne & DeWitt, 1999 defined problem drinking as the experience of one or more psychosocial consequences and found that the ratio of ever treated to untreated was approximately 1 in 10. The last study (Poulin et al., 1997) employed the CAGE (Mayfield, McLeod, & Hall, 1974) and found that 14.5% of those who scored 2 or more on the CAGE (indicating an alcohol problem) had ever accessed services. However, it is possible that the low proportion of service utilization observed in these studies was due to the fact that most respondents did not have very severe alcohol concerns. In order to assess service needs for alcohol problems, it is important to estimate the proportion of individuals with clinically significant concerns who access treatment (i.e., meet diagnostic criteria for alcohol abuse or dependence). While estimates have been generated of the proportion of such substance abusers who sought any general health services (Ross, Lin, & Cunningham, 1999), little research has been reported of the use of addiction-specific services in Canada.

Section snippets

Methods

The present analysis used data from the 1084 respondents with a lifetime diagnosis of alcohol abuse or dependence (DSM-III-R) in the Mental Health Supplement to the 1991 Ontario Health Survey (Supplement; N=9953; Ontario Ministry of Health, 1995). While the Supplement is now 10 years old, it is probably still the best data set in Canada on which to conduct these analyses because it contains both an assessment of service utilization and of DSM-III-R diagnoses. Respondents were asked if they had

Results

Only 36% of respondents with a lifetime diagnosis of alcohol abuse or dependence had ever accessed any services with the most common being talking to a medical doctor (29.7%) and attending Alcoholics Anonymous (12.3%; full list of services displayed in Table 1). Bivariate analyses revealed that addiction service utilization was more likely if the person was older at the time of interview (mean age: never treated=34.1; ever treated=38.3; P<.001) or had a more severe alcohol problem (lifetime

Discussion

The majority of individuals with alcohol abuse or dependence do not access treatment. The apparent disparity between the present study and earlier reports of treatment utilization Burton & Williamson, 1995, Ogborne & DeWitt, 1999, Poulin et al., 1997 most probably reflects the finding that those with more severe alcohol problems are more likely to have ever accessed treatment. While many may deal with these concerns by themselves (Cunningham, Lin, Ross, & Walsh, 2000), this large untreated

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