ArticleBMC medicine2014
An exploration of the dynamic longitudinal relationship between mental health and alcohol consumption: a prospective cohort study.
Article in BMC medicine, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
37 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Associations of common mental disorder with alcohol use in the adult general population: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2022Pooled it
- Dietary Behaviors and Mental Health Disorders Among Private University Students in Dhaka North City Corporation, Bangladesh: A Cross-Sectional Study.Public health challenges · 2026Article
- Health's influence on alcohol use-a longitudinal study of working adults in Sweden.European journal of public health · 2026Article
- A Rapid Appraisal of How Alcohol Is Screened and Treated Amongst Minoritised Ethnic Service Users Within Community Mental Health Settings.Drug and alcohol review · 2026Article
- Examination of the moderating role of internalizing symptoms in the direct and indirect relationships between alcohol use severity, rumination, and suicidal ideation.Journal of affective disorders · 2026Article
- Estimating differences in life satisfaction as a function of health-related behaviours: cross-sectional evidence from the Health Survey for England.BMJ public health · 2026Article
- Article
- Psychological distress, tobacco smoking and alcohol use: A population survey in Great Britain.Addictive behaviors reports · 2025Article
- Changes in self-reported alcohol consumption at high and low consumption in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: a test of the polarization hypothesis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Prevalence of hazardous alcohol consumption and evaluation of associated factors in university students.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Article
- Article
- The non-linear correlation between the severity of alcohol consumption and depressive symptoms in the Chinese Wa ethnic minority.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Mental health is positively associated with biodiversity in Canadian cities.Communications earth & environment · 2024Article
- Gender differences in alcohol abuse/dependence among medical undergraduates during the post-COVID‑19 pandemic period (October 20, 2020-April 5, 2021) in China.BMC psychiatry · 2023Article
- Characteristics of people who have received treatment for late-onset problem drinking and alcohol use disorder: A systematic review and narrative synthesis.Nordisk alkohol- & narkotikatidskrift : NAT · 2023Review
- Mental health problems and admissions to hospital for accidents and injuries in the UK military: A data linkage study.PloS one · 2023Article
- Understanding alcohol use and changes in drinking habits among people with a severe mental illness: a qualitative framework analysis study.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- The association between naturalistic use of psychedelics and co-occurring substance use disorders.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- Article
- Alcohol Consumption during the COVID-19 Lockdown Period: Predictors of At-Risk Drinking at Different AUDIT-C Cut-Off Thresholds.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundDespite intense investigation, the temporal sequence between alcohol consumption and mental health remains unclear. This study explored the relationship between alcohol consumption and mental health over multiple occasions, and compared a series of competing theoretical models to determine which best reflected the association between the two.
methodsData from phases 5 (1997 to 1999), 7 (2002 to 2004), and 9 (2007 to 2009) of the Whitehall II prospective cohort study were used, providing approximately 10 years of follow-up for 6,330 participants (73% men; mean ± SD age 55.8 ± 6.0 years). Mental health was assessed using the Short Form (SF)-36 mental health component score. Alcohol consumption was defined as the number of UK units of alcohol drunk per week. Four dynamic latent change score models were compared: 1) a baseline model in which alcohol consumption and mental health trajectories did not influence each other, 2) and model in which alcohol consumption influenced changes in mental health but mental health exerted no effect on changes in drinking and 3) vice versa, and (4) a reciprocal model in which both variables influenced changes in each other.
resultsThe third model, in which mental health influenced changes in alcohol consumption but not vice versa, was the best fit. In this model, the effect of previous mental health on upcoming change in alcohol consumption was negative (γ = -0.31, 95% CI -0.52 to -0.10), meaning that those with better mental health tended to make greater reductions (or shallower increases) in their drinking between occasions.
conclusionsMental health appears to be the leading indicator of change in the dynamic longitudinal relationship between mental health and weekly alcohol consumption in this sample of middle-aged adults. In addition to fuelling increases in alcohol consumption among low-level consumers, poor mental health may also be a maintaining factor for heavy alcohol consumption. Future work should seek to examine whether there are critical levels of alcohol intake at which different dynamic relationships begin to emerge between alcohol-related measures and mental health.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.