A study of alcohol misuse and dependence; UK MPs compared to the UK population

This Data Sharing Agreement permits the retention of the data provided under previous iterations of this Agreement for an interim period. This is a pragmatic approach to provide an active Agreement whilst enabling Kings College London to complete the necessary actions to enable a subsequent application to extend the Agreement meeting all applicable data sharing standards as published in NHS Digital’s website (see: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/dars-guidance).

There are concerns that UK Members of Parliament suffer from a higher prevalence of alcohol use disorders, possibly related to their working conditions. There have been no previous studies on this, the present study seeks to address this gap in knowledge, in order to inform health and service provision, mental health awareness and support for UK Members of Parliament. This work is being led by a research team at King's College London (KCL).

Main objective: In order to understand the prevalence of alcohol use disorders amongst current UK Members of Parliament the research team seeks access to data from the APMS as a nationally representative comparison sample. for a study of UK Members of Parliament alcohol misuse and dependence.

The research team at KCL have conducted a study to assess the prevalence of alcohol misuse and dependence in a representative sample of UK Members of Parliament. This project has separately received ethical approvals. The team utilised the same instruments for assessing alcohol misuse/ dependence as were used in the last UK APMS. The team at KCL would like to access APMS data in order to be able to make a comparison between the sample of MPs against a nationally representative sample from England. The team will use APMS data to produce standardised estimates for the prevalence of alcohol misuse/ dependence in UK MPs- so will need AUDIT scores alongside demographic details (age, sex, socioeconomic status, ethnicity). The models will adjust for common mental disorders so KCL will also need CIS-R scores. KCL will also need detail on social support measures (eg marital status). The analyses will be conducted by a statistician using STATA. Data held for the MPs were collected as part of another ethically approved survey approved by KCL ethics. The survey comprises the responses which MPs made to a series of questions which included alcohol use assessed by the AUDIT. The survey is fully anonymised.

All organisations party to this agreement must comply with the Data Sharing Framework Contract requirements, including those regarding the use (and purposes of that use) by “Personnel” (as defined within the Data Sharing Framework Contract ie: employees, agents and contractors of the Data Recipient who may have access to that data).

APMS low numbers and suppression:

​In order to protect patient confidentiality in publications resulting from analysis of APMS data users must:

- guarantee that any outputs made available to anyone other than those with whom this agreement is made, will meet required standards, including the guarantee, methods and standards contained in the Code of Practice for Official Statistics and the ONS Statistical Disclosure Control for tables produced from surveys;

- apply methods and standards specified in the Microdata Handling and Security Guide to Good Practice for disclosure control for statistical outputs.

The outputs of this work will be produced into a peer reviewed manuscript for submission to a journal. KCL will also produce a report for UK parliament- a member of the research team is a current member of parliament and holds links with the parliamentary health and wellbeing group. NHS Digital data (in the form of data from the APMS surveys) will be used as a comparison sample for derived estimates in all main reports and manuscripts. There will be no attempt to link or re-identify KCL survey data with APMS survey data. See anticipated dates for outputs below.

In summary- anticipated outputs:

1. One peer reviewed manuscript- to be submitted to a journal eg. The British Medical Journal- by Dec 2019. Anticipated audience for this will be academics and other researchers, healthcare providers and policy makers. A copy will also be made available to the Parliamentary Health and Wellbeing Group.

2. Report or statement of findings to be distributed to relevant individuals in UK parliament- by Dec 2019

The study have produced one peer reviewed article using this data see link

https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/10/3/e034929.full.pdf

The findings will be of benefit of highlighting and improving the health of current UK MPs as it will help to determine whether alcohol misuse/ dependence is a problem in a UK MP sample (relative to the national population) and will help to inform parliamentary healthcare/ service provision for this group of people.

United Kingdom Members of Parliament (MPs) are exposed to many risk factors for alcohol/ substance misuse, including high workloads, intense media scrutiny, in addition to working away from their families much of the time. However, to date, no formal, quantitative, survey has been conducted to assess MP’s mental health, and their access to support and treatment services. The present proposal will utilise nationally representative data from the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Surveys to provide a reference for alcohol use disorders (via the AUDIT) for a sample of MPs from UK parliament, in whom researchers wish to estimate the prevalence of alcohol use disorders.

Main benefits will be

1. Improvements to the provision of mental healthcare to parliamentarians (this may involve making existing services more visible and accessible). This will be through sharing findings from the report with the Parliamentary Health & Wellbeing Service.

2. The findings will also inform measures to screen and manage alcohol use disorders and common mental disorders in parliamentarians- for example the findings will be fed back to the existing providers of care to better inform their current interventions.

3. Inform discussions of parliamentarian mental health- to be measured through social media (eg. twitter), press releases and national press reporting (following publication of paper) and other announcements on institutional websites- by Dec 2020. This may lead to a reduction in stigma in people's attitudes concerning parliamentarian mental health and may mean that parliamentarians themselves are more likely to seek help for their own mental health problems.

The findings from the study were published in paper and widely reported and shared on social media platforms (facebook, Twitter etc) raising the profile of this important health concern. This has led to a national discussion on this important issue and may consider MPs and those that provide care to this group to be more aware of this important issue.