Type a - type B clustering of alcoholics - a preliminary report from an Indian hospital

To generate homogeneous clusters of alcoholics and to check the empirical stability of the clusters. Patients from consecutive admissions were assessed by face to face interview on 7 or 8 post abstinence day in a cross-sectional design. 73 male inpatients satisfying DSM-IV criteria of alcohol dependence syndrome without significant physical or cognitive deficits formed the sample. Apart from socio demographic variables, twelve other parameters were assessed with appropriate instruments over a span of last six months. Cluster analysis was followed by ANOVA on the twelve variables between the clusters. Stability of the clusters was checked by a three step statistical technique. Two clusters with 61 subjects and 12 subjects were accepted. ANOVA showed significant difference on nine out of twelve variables. Throughout the three steps of the check mechanism eight variables were found to consistently discriminate the two clusters. On a small sample of hospitalized alcoholics using twelve parameters we could obtain a preliminary evidence that subtypes simulating Type A - Type B could occur in a different sociocultural setting. Further studies on a bigger sample with data on treatment response are indicated.