Clinical value of comorbidity of affective disorders and alcohol dependence

• Main Authors: O. V. Roshchina, A. I. Rozin, E. D. Schastnyy, N. A. Bokhan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Siberian State Medical University (Tomsk) 2020-01-01
• Series: Bûlleten' Sibirskoj Mediciny
• Subjects: alcohol dependence; mood disorders; comorbidity
• Online Access: https://bulletin.tomsk.ru/jour/article/view/2563
• ISSN: 1682-0363; 1819-3684

The aim was to study the clinical-psychopathological, clinical-follow-up, clinical-dynamic features of mood disorders (MD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) with their comorbidity combinations.Materials and methods. The study included 88 people with AUD and MD: 33 women (37.5%) and 55 (62.5%) men. The first group was 31 patients (35,0%) with AUD without comorbid affective symptoms, the second was 29 patients (33.0%) with MD without alcohol dependence, and the third was 28 patients (32.0%) with comorbid AUD and MD. There were no statistically significant differences between the groups by age and sex composition, by the level of statistical significance of differences (p = 0.115 – by sex, ð = 0.248 – by age). The study used clinical, psychopathological, clinical and follow-up, clinical, dynamic and statistical methods. Statistical processing was performed using Pearson’s χ2, Mann – Whitney U-test for comparing independent samples and Spearman’s correlation analysis (r).Results. Patients of the second and third groups were diagnosed with dysthymia more rarely in statistically significant values by the level of statistical significance of differences (10.4% and 32.1% respectively, p = 0.023) and this testifies to MD taking chronic course in patients with AUD. The average duration of bout of heavy-drinking in the first group was longer than in the third group – 7 (4; 17) and 5,5 (3.5; 9.5) days accordingly (p = 0.043). Duration of the disease in the first and third groups was 10 (6; 18.5) and 14 (10; 19.75) years, respectively (p = 0.036). It confirms the negative impact of comorbidity on the clinicaldynamic features in the case of co-existing of AUD and MD.Conclusion. The coexistence of alcohol dependence and affective pathology enhances the suicidal risk of certain diseases. A tendency to the early appearance of symptoms of AUD and their rapid dynamics, a shorter duration of light intervals of MD and AUC, a relatively low tolerance to alcohol and pronounced depressogenic effect of alcohol in the case of comorbidity were found.