A new study indicates that millions of children in the United States live in a household with a parent who suffers from a moderate or severe disorder of drug addiction.
Olekcii mach / getty images / istockphoto
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Olekcii mach / getty images / istockphoto
In the United States, nearly 19 million children have at least one parent suffering from a substance consumption disorder, according to a new study published Monday in Jama Pediatrics. And a significant number of these children have a parent whose dependence is moderate or serious as opposed to a light, according to the study.
The number amounts to 1 in 4 children with a parent who has an addiction.
“I am a doc of dependence, and therefore I think of this problem all the time,” said Dr Scott HadlandHead of adolescent medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital, who was not involved in the new study. “Even again, I was surprised by the height of this percentage. It’s just a huge number of children who are affected.”
“If a quarter of children in the United States suffer from a parent suffering from a substance consumption disorder, this tells us that every day in our clinics, we meet many, if not dozens of families affected by consumption disorders,” he adds. “And we have to be ready and ready to help support these families.”
The new study used data from 2023 National Drogist and Health SurveyA federal survey which estimated the prevalence of consumption of substances and mental health disorders according to the most updated criteria in the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders-5 (DSM-5). The national survey is managed by the administration of drug addiction and mental health services, but the team in charge of the survey was released As part of the recent reduction in force. We do not know how the cuts will affect the future of the investigation.
The main result of the study is significantly higher than previous estimates (7 million in a study originally published in 2022), which relied on the diagnostic criteria for the DSM-IV.
The new study also estimated the number of children a parent with moderate or severe dependence as opposed to a light.
“We have also found that 7.6 million children live in a household with a parent who suffers from a moderate or serious disorder of substances consumption,” explains the author of the study Sean Esteban McCabeDirector of the Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Fummer and Health at the University of Michigan. “And 3.4 million live with a parent suffering from multiple disorders of the consumption of substances.”
McCabe and his team also found that more than 6 million children have a parent with mental health in addition to a drug addiction disorder.
“These estimates are incredibly important to understand the scope of the consumption disorder of parental substances in the United States,” wrote Dr Davida Schiff in an email. Schiff is a pediatrician and medical doctor of drug addiction at the General Hospital of Massachusetts and was not involved in the new study.
According to Schiff, another notable conclusion in the study is that a majority of parents – 12 million – suffered from alcohol consumption problems. “Although alcohol is more socially acceptable in our society, the study highlights the need to pay more attention to an increasing number of children exposed to parental alcohol consumption disorder.”
“It is also important to remember that alcohol is in fact the main cause of death-related deaths in the United States,” notes Hadland. “It actually kills more people in the United States than opioids each year, but it is a slower mortality rate. It is a chronic disease process that affects, you know, someone’s liver, the risk of someone to develop cancer.”
And the children of parents suffering from dependence runs a higher risk of various physical and mental health problems themselves.
“Young children who grow up in houses affected by the South Parental (substance consumption disorder) run an increased risk of undergoing care, disruption of parental capacities, involuntary ingestions and parental overdose,” wrote Schiff.
They also run a higher risk of Develop some mental health problems and long -term substance consumption problems.
“One thing I do as a pediatrician is when I take care of a young person who has a parent suffering from a substance consumption disorder, it is to make sure that I do good work to ask questions and detection of mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, ADHD, all that we know can be more frequent in the children of parents with a drug addict,” said Hadland.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends to pediatricians ask patients and / or parents on the consumption of substances in the family in order to educate them on the risks of substance consumption and to connect families to treatment if necessary.
“As pediatricians and doctors in family medicine, we can think of detecting parents for the consumption of substances and substance consumption problems when they enter our clinics to ensure that we can identify problems and bring parents to treatment, because it is probably in the best interest of their child,” said Hadland.
The pediatric clinics affiliated to the mass general Brigham in the Boston region use development screening that Includes questions about the consumption of parental substanceswrote Schiff.
Parents suffering from drug addiction love their children and want the best for them, she says, but may not access treatment due to the stigma of the search for dependence and obstacles to access to care.
For parents suffering from substance consumption disorders, Schiff says that she and her colleagues “discuss the sure storage of substances, the identification of a caregiver and sober for children during periods of active use and provide training in naloxone administration if an involuntary ingestion occurs”.
As for parents suffering from drug addicts who have infants, she recommends avoiding breastfeeding after having used substances and discusses safe sleep practices “to avoid dangerous sleep injuries and suffocation of the infant”.
“We know that more than three -quarters of people with substance consumption disorders do not benefit from treatment,” said McCabe. “And children who are in households with parents who do not get help are much less likely to get help themselves. I therefore think that it is important for us who serve and provide care for children to understand what these figures mean and also how we can design programs to meet these children where they are.”