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Alcohol use disorder higher among gender diverse groups – study

Members of the LGBTQIA community are more prone to alcohol use disorder, finds a study.

Photo by Kauane Oliveira from Pexels.com

Members of the LGBTQIA community are more prone to alcohol use disorder (AUD).

So says a study – “Alcohol Use Disorder Treatment in Sexually and Gender Diverse Patients: A Retrospective Cohort Study” by Michal J. McDowell, Dana S. King, Sy Gitin, et al – that appeared in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

It is, of course, acknowledged that sexually and gender diverse (SGD) people have higher odds of AUD compared to heterosexual and cisgender people. And yet AUD treatment access and use disparities are not well characterized, so that this study in particular wanted to assess differences in AUD treatment among SGD versus non-SGD populations.

Here, the researchers performed a retrospective cohort study using data from a federally qualified health center electronic health record system in Boston, Massachusetts. Patients were 18 years or older with an International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-9 or ICD- 10 AUD diagnosis and any clinic visit from January 2013 until June 2021 (N = 3,607). Treatment for AUD was identified using binary variables for medication prescription orders and visits for AUD.

The researchers found:

  • Among patients identifying as lesbian/gay, 6.9% had an AUD diagnosis, as compared to 2.6% of patients identifying as straight/ heterosexual (P < .001).
  • The prevalence of AUD was higher in the gender diverse group as compared to the cisgender group (5.5% vs 4.4%, P < .001). There were no significant differences in receipt of a prescription for injectable naltrexone, acamprosate or disulfiram between SGD and non-SGD patients.
  • For oral naltrexone, 16.1% of sexually diverse patients received a prescription, as compared to 9.8% of straight/heterosexual patients (P < .001). For visits, both the straight/ heterosexual cohort and the cisgender cohorts had the lowest proportion of AUD-related pharmacotherapy and individual psychotherapy visits, as compared to SGD cohorts.

With the researchers noting that SGD patients had higher proportions of AUD diagnosis and AUD care utilization through behavioral health as compared to non-SGD patients, there is therefore a need for “AUD treatment access and engagement… to address AUD-related disparities among SGD people.”

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