Comorbid psychiatric disorders predict and influence treatment outcome in female alcoholics

Drinking patterns, psychiatric comorbidity and personality disorders (PD) at intake and at a 2-year follow-up were studied in 120 female alcoholics early in their treatment career. At follow-up, the women had improved their drinking patterns, but their mental health still differed significantly from women of the general population. Psychiatric comorbidity at intake correlated with a significantly worse drinking and mental health outcome. Subjects with high scores on phobias more frequently dropped out of treatment and thereby had a worse drinking outcome. Subjects with depression at follow-up also had a poorer drinking outcome, as well as subjects with schizoid PD. When tested by multivariate analyses, only depression at follow-up contributed significantly to the increased explained variance in drinking outcome when controlling for drinking pattern and treatment duration.