Alcohol-related health care visits spiked during pandemic in Ontario: study

A latest Ontario study suggests there was a spike in health-care visits related to alcohol in the course of the pandemic, each amongst individuals with a history of problems with drinking in addition to those confronting issues for the primary time.

The study, which used data from research institute ICES, shows a 22 per cent jump in visits to physicians including family doctors, psychiatrists and addiction medicine specialists.

Lead writer and Ottawa Hospital family physician Dr. Daniel Myran said the information, collected between March 2020 and May 2021, also show a six per cent increase in hospitalizations.

“These are people who find themselves being hospitalized with alcohol dependence or withdrawal. Or seizures or problems like that,“ he said. ”Or they’ve drunk enough that you simply’ve eroded the liner of your stomach, otherwise you’ve given yourself pancreatitis.”

At the identical time, there was a 15 per cent drop in alcohol-related emergency-room visits, likely because people generally stopped going to ERs for fear of catching COVID-19 or overwhelming an already stretched health-care system, Myran said.

Much of the rise in out-of-hospital care was done virtually, and that implies those services needs to be bolstered to assist improve access for people scuffling with alcohol use, said Myran, a researcher at ICES.

“It might be that individuals who before would have never sought care or would have been delayed in searching for care found that the change in virtual care delivery was easier to access. In order that becomes a matter of, is maintaining or improving access to virtual look after alcohol and substance use a very important piece of the policy puzzle?“

The study, published this week within the Canadian Journal of Public Health, suggests pandemic-related stress caused an increase in alcohol-related health problems for many who didn’t have any pre-existing issues, in addition to those that had already been coping with alcohol use disorder but lacked access to in-patient addiction treatment services, Myran said.

Increased availability of alcohol in the course of the pandemic while other services were shut down could have influenced people to drink more, and for some those that behaviour will persist, he said.

“You had rules before against the house delivery of alcohol which were rolled back. And in lots of cases those are here to remain.”

Nonetheless, latest guidance on alcohol use by the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction could help some people to contemplate their level of consumption as a consequence of evidence about alcohol-related cancer and heart disease with increased use, Myran said.

The CCSA’s guidance says no amount of alcohol is secure, and low-risk consumption amounts to 2 standard drinks per day.

“I hope the guidance is an element of a broader conversation about harms from alcohol,” Myran said. “I feel it has actually fostered increased awareness.”

Getting help for alcohol use disorder could also be fraught with barriers for some people, especially in the event that they should not have a family doctor, he said.

“Compounding that, there’s an issue of access to addiction services and treatment, that are hard to access for quite a lot of reasons.”

“I see this clinically, that you’ve people searching for help with addiction and detox from alcohol. In the event that they’re a case where they need medical management, it’s not at all times possible to begin treatment immediately. And that’s a shame. We must always have improved access to treatment, however the services can be found. It may just take time.”

Data released by Statistics Canada in February 2022 says liquor authorities sold the equivalent of 9.7 standard alcohol beverages per week per Canadian of legal drinking age in 2020/2021. That was up by just over two per cent from a yr earlier.

“Overall, $25.5 billion price of alcoholic beverages were sold within the fiscal yr ended March 31, 2021, up 4.2 per cent from a yr earlier. This was the most important sales increase in over a decade. A lot of the liquor authorities attributed this growth to the pandemic and its impact on purchasing habits,” the agency said in a release.

It has conducted a series of online surveys for the reason that starting of the pandemic, including one within the last week of January 2021 that asked about changes in alcohol consumption.

Amongst Canadians who had previously consumed alcohol, 24 per cent believed their use had increased, compared with before the pandemic, Statistics Canada said in a March 2021 release.

“Those that had increased their alcohol consumption in the course of the pandemic were most definitely to report frequent heavy drinking,” it said, adding 36 per cent of respondents had five or more drinks on one occasion a minimum of once per week within the previous 30 days.

Respondents to a survey in March and April 2020 cited boredom, stress and isolation as aspects for his or her higher consumption of alcohol.

On the provincial level, Ontario had the best increase in reported alcohol consumption, at 30 per cent, following by the Prairie provinces, at 27 per cent.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 2, 2023.

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