The dangerous combination of alcohol and medication. Who is at greater risk?

Latvia has a high proportion of people who have used alcohol at a high-risk level in the last month - 20.6%. Data on the use of medicines show that 31% of the population have used pain killers for headaches in the last week, 33.2% for other types of pain, 15.5% have taken sedatives and 4.6% have taken antidepressants. These are the findings of my master's thesis, which analysed data from the Latvian Health Habits Survey coordinated by the Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (the Centre’s report does not describe the results of this correlation).

What is harmful drinking and how widespread is it?  

Although risky drinking is one of the most commonly studied forms of alcohol use, there is still a lack of common terminology in research. This study uses the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) definition to describe harmful or risky drinking.

The WHO defines harmful drinking as drinking 60 grams or more of pure alcohol on at least one occasion in the past 30 days. 60 grams of pure alcohol is equivalent to ~200 ml of vodka (five glasses of vodka), ~1500 ml of lager beer (three cups/500 ml bottles), ~600 ml of wine (four glasses of wine), ~750 ml of sparkling wine (five glasses of wine), etc.

Analysing the data of 2,835 respondents, it was found that men were more likely than women to have drunk alcohol in the last month, 35.1% and 9.5% respectively. Gender differences in the prevalence of harmful drinking are explained by physiological, cultural and social factors. For example, in several cultures, drinking alcohol is considered more socially acceptable behaviour in men rather than in women. This factor is reinforced by the prevailing gender roles in society, where men's rights are more respected than women's.

Although overall usage of medications did not differ between risky and non-risky drinkers for both sexes combined, analysis of the data within gender groups revealed interesting and significant results. Women with harmful drinking habits were twice as likely to use painkillers for headaches and sedatives, and one and a half times more likely to use medications for other pain compared to women who did not engage in harmful drinking habits. No such results were observed for men. In contrast, the potential use of antidepressants did not differ between men and women depending on harmful alcohol use.

Full article on Delfi news portal (in Latvian)