Alcohol use can have a significant impact on an individual. The specific affects can vary per individual, however, and it is important to study the impacts based on age, health, mental condition and other demographics. Taking such an approach helps in determining the best prevention and treatment methods to deploy.
To better understand the impacts of alcoholic drinking on those individuals aged 60 or older, the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs recently released a study: Alcohol Use Among Older Adults in the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions: A Latent Class Analysis, wherein 4,646 older current drinkers were evaluated from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions.
Classes among the study individuals were identified using alcohol consumption and diagnostic indicators to develop latent class analysis. Within these classes, researchers analyzed the association between class membership and sociodemographic, psychiatric, health and mental health variables with the use of multinomial and linear regression.
As a result of this approach to segmentation, three latent classes were identified and included: individuals in the low-risk drinker class, in which 89.17 percent displayed low endorsement of heavy episodic use, at-risk consumption and alcohol abuse or dependence criteria.
The second class was considered the moderate-risk drinker class, made up of 9.65 percent of the study population. These individuals were more likely to exceed consumption guidelines. The third class was made up of 1.17 percent of study individuals, characterized by their high probability of both Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, criteria and risky alcohol consumption items.
A decreased risk of being a moderate-risk drinker was easily associated with being female, older age, and African-American. An increased risk was associated with those who were the adult child of an alcoholic, a previous smoker or a current smoker. An individual was more likely to have decreased odds of being a high-risk drinker if they were female, older and had a college education.
Major depression – in addition to smoking – was identified as a high-risk variable. Those who were classified in the high-risk drinker class were found to have significantly lower self-rated mental and physical health than low-risk drinkers.
In this particular study, researchers concluded that a subpopulation of older drinkers could easily exceed consumption guidelines without DSM-defined alcohol-related problems. For some older drinkers, however, risky alcohol use is also part of a larger pattern of health risks, which should be evaluated in terms of overall treatment. Such an approach is sure to help increase the chances of successful treatment, even at an advanced age.
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