Psychiatric disorders associated with alcoholism: 2 year follow-up of treatment.

INTRODUCTION: Alcoholics show high rates of comorbidity with other psychiatric disorders. It is known that women are more likely to have psychiatric comorbidity than men. Existence of comorbidity in alcoholism implies a worse prognosis in the disease evolution. Treatment becomes more complex because these patients have more physical, psychological, familial and social problems than alcoholics without comorbidity. This two-year treatment follow-up study has aimed to assess the evolution of a group of patients who have a psychiatric disorder associated with alcoholism.

METHODS: We selected 100 patients enrolled in the alcohol program, with psychiatric disorder associated with “Harmful Use of Alcohol” or “Alcohol Dependence Syndrome” (ICD-10). This population was compared with a control sample consisting of 284 alcoholic patients without associated psychiatric disorders.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The percentage of women with psychiatric disorder associated with alcoholism is 47% (almost 1/1 in relation to men), significantly higher than the 10.56% of the control sample. Psychiatric disorders most frequently associated with alcoholism are personality disorders (30%), adjustment disorders (24%), depressive disorders (22%), and anxiety disorders (18%). In schizophrenic patients, the rate of alcoholism is 11% and in bipolar disorders 9%. After two years of follow up, it was found that 28% of the patients with psychiatric disorders associated with alcoholism were in abstinence compared to 41.90% of the control sample. Therefore, there is evidence of a worse outcome of patients suffering from a dual diagnosis.