Polysubstance Use Patterns among Outpatients Undergoing Substance Use Disorder Treatment: A Latent Class Analysis PMC

For further reading on developing your team to deliver integrated treatment for co-occurring disorders see the SAMSHA Integrated Treatment for Co-Occurring Disorders. Polysubstance abuse overwhelms the body, which becomes unable to metabolize this mix of chemicals safely. Mixing drugs and alcohol has a high prevalence, though potentially life-threatening consequences.

1. Conversely, licit drugs include substances that are not illegal but have effects on the body and mind.
2. Considering the overall criterion count, 59% of the individuals in the high-PSA subgroup met ten or more CoUD criteria while this was observed in only 34% of the low-PSA subgroup (Table S7).
3. Apps to support CM are commercially available and streamline the process of random remote drug testing, tracking patient outcomes, and electronically depositing financial rewards on a debit card.
4. Alcohol is hypothesized to facilitate the release of opioid peptides in the VTA, nucleus accumbens, and central nucleus of the amygdala.
5. A mental health professional will conduct an evaluation to get a sense of the patient’s mental health and substance use history.

Clinicians can also add “in early remission,” “in sustained remission,” “on maintenance therapy” for certain substances, and “in a controlled environment.” These further describe the current state of the substance use disorder. The DSM-5-TR allows clinicians to specify how severe or how much of a problem the substance use disorder is, depending on how many symptoms are identified. The activation of the brain’s reward system is central to problems arising from drug use. The rewarding feeling people experience due to taking drugs may be so profound that they neglect other normal activities in favor of taking the drug. Taken as a whole, the two-class solution showed the better fit as it was supported by all the fit indices and BLRT tests (Table 2). The calculated average posterior probabilities of class membership were 0.83 and 0.89, showing low cross-probabilities of 0.17 and 0.11.

Polysubstance Use Patterns among Outpatients Undergoing Substance Use Disorder Treatment: A Latent Class Analysis

Treatment may need to focus on general factors, rather than drug-specific features. A target for treatment to address polysubstance use may be to focus on strengthening decision-making in general or targeting other common features across substances, such as craving or use of substances as a coping mechanism. Service delivery systems may need to be modified to address both general addiction issues that can inherently target multiple substances and to address the specific overlapping conditions that patients experience.

Studies show that individuals using opioids and stimulants concurrently had over twice the risk of fatally overdosing compared to those only taking opioids. However, combining prescription medicine with other prescription drugs, alcohol, or illicit substances marijuana statistics in the us leads to life-threatening consequences. Depressants like morphine, benzodiazepines, heroin, and oxycodone are primarily known for their calming effects. Taking these depressants and sedatives concurrently or abusing them leads to slow breathing and heartbeat.

What are the Most Common Poly-Abused Drugs?

A second limitation concerns the distribution proportion of the participants in relation to their substance of addiction. Some subgroups are unbalanced with respect to this variable, due to a small number of participants. However, this aspect is also linked to the characteristics of the subjects who have access to addiction care services in Italy. Table 2 reported the model fit statistics and a brief class description for the solution ranging from 1 to 6-classes.

Diagnosing Substance Abuse Disorders

Marijuana users are far more likely to use opioids nonmedically than people who do not use marijuana. Further, as a general principal, the more widely a drug is used, the higher the percentage of users who do not use other drugs; and, the less widely used, the more likely a drug is to be used with other drugs (Fig. 1). While the reasons for this increasing overlap in substances that are less frequently consumed is not totally clear, some of it may relate to the drug use trajectories where substances are added to one another in a progression. Because less frequently consumed substances are rarely the first used, it is typical that less frequently consumed substances would have a higher degree of overlap over the life course than the more commonly consumed. This principal may help explain the high frequency of overlap of heroin use with other drug use and the lesser, but still significant, overlap of prescription opioid misuse (which is much more common than heroin use) with other drug use. Overlap of opioids with other substances can include shifts across the lifespan and simultaneous co-use of substances.

Jan Hoffman, who covers addiction, reported from encampments and treatment clinics in Western Michigan. Whether intentional or not, mixing drugs is never safe because the effects from combining drugs may be stronger and more unpredictable than one drug alone, and even deadly. To find a treatment program, browse the top-rated addiction treatment facilities in each state by visiting our homepage, or by viewing the SAMHSA Treatment Services Locator.

How is Polysubstance Abuse Diagnosed?

Many drug combinations occur in people who use alcohol and other street drugs while taking prescription medication. Studies of polysubstance use with this combination find increased death rates, with 20% or more of people who died found to be using both drug types. Both drugs act on areas of the brain that cause them to 4 ways to stop alcohol cravings suppress a person’s ability to breathe, with a stronger effect when taken together. Cocaine typically leads to elevated mood and energy, while benzos like Valium (diazepam) or Xanax (alprazolam) are sedatives often used to help you sleep. Different combinations will lead to different symptoms of the polysubstance abuse.

We also highlight the potential importance of careful translation of preclinical research to human studies. For example, preclinical models of drug reward (i.e., Fig. 2) could be updated with clinical research to identify which pathways and receptors are related to different substances in humans. Some of this work has been started in the area of unique and general brain pathway correlates of addictions to various substances [99], but both new research as well as thoughtful graphical synthesis to illustrate the impacts are needed. One promising approach relies on a big data approach of developing predictive models by computational mining of datasets related to drug abuse [97].

If a person abuses a drug for an extended period of time, or a highly-addicting drug several times, addiction can result. Risk of addiction is especially high when abusing multiple substances, as each instance of abuse puts a person at further risk for developing an addiction. It’s important to first understand the difference between polysubstance abuse and addiction. For instance, if a substance is illicit (illegal), such as heroin or cocaine, then use of it is always considered abuse.