Patient characteristics and treatment outcome predictors in older adults in routine care alcohol use disorder treatment

Background: Knowledge on age-specific patient characteristics and treatment outcome predictors from routine-care is needed to understand the treatment needs of older adults (OA; age 60+) with alcohol use disorder (AUD).  Aims: To explore putative 1) age-specific socio-demographic, health-, and AUD-related characteristics at AUD-treatment start and 2) age-specific predictors of AUD-treatment outcomes. Methods: Routine-care data from n=125 young adults (18 – 39 years), n=216 middle-aged adults (40 – 59 years), and n=80 OA who began outpatient AUD-treatment in a large Danish municipality between 2019 and 2022. Patients underwent a clinical interview, including the Addiction Severity Index (ASI), at intake and at three months after intake. Treatment outcome predictors were investigated with multiple OLS regression and Generalized Linear Models with and without interactions with age group.Results: At intake, compared to younger patients, OA had greater health and financial problems. OA more often had a higher secondary education, independent accommodation, and were not working (p<0.05). Being an OA (vs. young adults) predicted a lower ASI alcohol score at three months (p<0.001). In the whole sample, lifetime years with heavy drinking, past-month number of days with health problems, greater financial problems, and previous AUD treatment predicted less favorable treatment outcomes (p<0.05). Most interactions with age group were non-significant (p>=0.05).  Conclusions: Overall, no age-specific predictors of problematic treatment outcomes among OA were identified. Some predictors of negative treatment outcomes (health and financial problems) are especially severe among OA and deserve attention in AUD interventions with OA.