[Co-morbidity of affective disorders and personality disorders]

The present study intends to investigate selected factors related to comorbidity of affective and personality disorders. The authors studied a group of in-patients from the Psychiatric Unit of the Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre, who were hospitalized during 1985 to 1989. The factors selected were: age, gender, level of education, marital status, age at the beginning of the affective disorder, number of previous hospitalizations, suicide attempts, drug abuse and length of hospitalization. A non-paired case-control study was performed. The results of this study revealed that patients with comorbidity tended to be companionless, to have more suicide attempts and to show unipolar affective disorder. These factors yielded statistical significance. The remainder of the factors that were studied did not convey any statistical significance.