PRIMARY STUDY

Associations Between Reductions in Depressive Symptoms and Reductions in Pain and Anxiety Symptoms and Substance Use: Emulation of a Randomized Trial

Key Findings:  Using inverse probability of treatment weighting to analyze observational data of U.S. veterans this review finds that reducing depressive symptoms may potentially reduce pain, anxiety, and opioid use. However, depressive symptom reductions were not associated with reductions in alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, or cocaine.