Impact of Substance Use and Mental Health Comorbidity on Health Care Access in Canada

Jul 9, 2019Journal of dual diagnosis

How Substance Use and Mental Health Together Affect Access to Health Care in Canada

AI simplified

Circadian Biology on OpenScience ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Abstract

Individuals with comorbid psychological disorders and substance use disorders were significantly more likely to access mental health services compared to those with only one of these disorders.

Those with mental disorders were less likely to have accessed a professional in the past year compared to the comorbid group.
Individuals with substance use disorders also showed lower rates of professional access compared to the comorbid group.
No significant differences were found in the perceived helpfulness of services received between the groups.
Time spent in professional consultation did not differ significantly among those with comorbid disorders and those with single diagnoses.
Overall access to mental health care was low across all groups, highlighting treatment gaps.

AI simplified

Psychological disorders and substance use comorbidity is associated with greater symptomatology and a worse prognosis. Previous research has highlighted discrepancies in the level of use of health care services in individuals experiencing comorbidity compared to those with mental disorders or substance use disorders alone. The purpose of the current study was to compare mental health service use (i.e., access, number of professionals accessed, helpfulness of services received, and number of hours of services received) among individuals with mental disorders, substance use disorders, and comorbid disorders.Participants consisted of respondents to the 2012 Canadian Community Health Survey-Mental Health ( = 25,133). The researchers used a mixture of binary logistic regressions, Poisson regressions, linear regressions, and ordinal logistic regression to explore the impact of demographic variables, psychological distress, and clinical categories on health care access.The mental disorders group, = 0.52, = .008, 95% CI [0.32, 0.85], = 0.36, and the substance use disorders group, = 0.31,.001, 95% CI [0.16, 0.60], = 0.65, were significantly less likely than the comorbid group to report having accessed a professional in the past year. There were no significant differences in the perceived level of helpfulness for interventions received or in the time spent in professional consultation when comparing the substance use disorders and mental disorders groups to the comorbid group.Although the level of access to health care was low overall, those with concurrent disorders were more likely to access mental health services than those with substance use disorders or mental disorders only. The findings of this study reveal various treatment gaps, especially in those experiencing substance use disorders, and reaffirm the importance of improving treatment accessibility for these individuals. Objective: Methods: Results: Conclusions: N OR p d OR p = d

Full Text

Full text is available at the source.

View full text ↗

Impact of Substance Use and Mental Health Comorbidity on Health Care Access in Canada

Abstract

Full Text

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the circadian biology brief

Abstract

Full Text

Related papers

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the circadian biology brief