Severity of alcohol dependence and its relationship to additional psychiatric symptoms in male alcoholic inpatients

Many alcoholics suffer from distress associated with psychiatric symptoms in addition to alcoholism. Although there may be many such symptoms reported by the alcoholic, there may not be enough in any one category to meet DSM III criteria for an additional psychiatric diagnosis, and consequently these symptoms may not be considered in treatment planning. In addition, the prevalence and severity of psychiatric symptoms may be dependent on the progression of alcoholism. The purpose of this study was to examine whether a relationship exists between patterns of psychiatric symptomatology and the level of severity of alcohol dependence in an inpatient male alcoholic sample, and to describe how this information can be utilized to differentiate large groups of alcoholics into clinical meaningful categories. The study sample was comprised of 100 male alcoholic inpatients from the Alcoholism Treatment Unit at a metropolitan Veterans Administration Hospital. Subjects were administered The Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST), the Severity of Alcohol Dependence Questionnaire (SADQ), and the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R). Correlational analysis of the data supported the hypothesis that a positive relationship exists between the severity of alcohol dependence and the prevalence of additional psychiatric symptom patterns. Partial correlational analysis indicated that the length of the alcoholic's illness and the number of inpatient treatments for alcoholism enhanced the relationship between the severity of alcoholism and most of the symptom scales. The utility of assessing concurrent psychiatric symptomatology as it relates to the severity of alcohol dependence is discussed in relation to treatment planning and prognostic assessment of the patient.