Khan, Tareq Ferdous and Mazumder, Shrabanti and Rana, Sohel and Rahman, Mijanur (2025) Impact of polysubstance use on major depression, serious psychological distress, and mental illness among US adults. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, Early online, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-025-01520-3.
External website: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11469-0...
To assess the association between common polysubstance use patterns and their incremental odds for health outcomes: i) major depressive episode (MDE), ii) serious psychological distress (SPD), and iii) any mental illness (AMI). This study used data from 47,100 US adults participating in the 2022 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Four target substance use groups: i) tobacco use only (T), ii) tobacco and alcohol (TA), iii) tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana (TAM), and iv) tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, and at least one other substance use (TAMO), were defined based on thirteen major substances to compare with no substance use. Covariate-adjusted logistic regression models were performed to assess the association with health outcomes. Tobacco use was significantly associated with a higher odds of MDE (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 1.32, CI = 1.04–1.66), SPD (aOR = 1.66, CI = 1.39–1.97), and AMI (aOR = 1.41, CI = 1.22–1.63). Although alcohol with tobacco does not increase the odds further, consuming marijuana as the third substance (TAM) increases the odds significantly (aORs, CIs: MDE: 2.25, 1.98–2.56, SPD: 2.28, 2.05–2.52, AMI: 2.41, 2.20–2.65). The worst outcome was observed for TAMO (aORs, CIs: MDE: 3.89, 3.40–4.46, SPD: 3.95, 3.52–4.44, AMI: 4.46, 4.00–4.99). This study showed the increased odds of MDE, SPD, and AMI for people using tobacco (T) and polysubstance, with the highest odds for the TAMO group. These findings underscore the need for targeted interventions to address tobacco and polysubstance use, as well as ongoing mental health conditions.
B Substances > Substances in general
B Substances > Alcohol
B Substances > Tobacco (cigarette smoking)
G Health and disease > State of health > Mental health
G Health and disease > Substance use disorder (addiction) > Multiple / concurrent substance use (Poly-drug)
G Health and disease > Substance related disorder > Substance related mental health disorder > Dual diagnosis / comorbidity (mental health)
G Health and disease > Behavioural and mental health disorder (Psychosis / mood)
T Demographic characteristics > Adult
VA Geographic area > United States
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