Association between impulsivity and depressive symptoms in recently detoxified patients with alcohol dependence

Depression and impulsivity are etiologically linked to alcohol dependence (AD) and are known to affect course and outcomes. The relationship between impulsivity and depressive symptoms has been investigated only in a few studies of individuals with AD.

This study aimed to explore the association between impulsivity and depressive symptoms in patients with AD.

Our study was conducted in the inpatient setup of a tertiary care psychiatry institute. The study design is cross-sectional. The Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) and stop signal task (SST) were used to assess levels of global impulsivity and behavioral impulsivity, respectively, among 60 recently detoxified inpatients with AD. The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) was used to measure depressive symptoms. The results were analyzed to examine the association of depressive symptoms with impulsivity. Pearson's coefficient of correlation or Spearman's rank correlation and linear regression analysis were performed to explore the association between quantitative variables.

Patients with higher HAM-D scores were found to have significantly higher score on all three subscales of the BIS-11. The attention impulsivity subscale had the strongest correlations (r = 0.53, P < 0.001). Depressive symptoms were more strongly correlated with cognitive impulsivity (r = 0.54, P< 0.0001) compared with motor impulsivity and were not significantly associated with behavioral impulsivity. Adjusting for other variables, cognitive impulsivity was found to be the strongest predictor of the severity of depressive symptoms.

The study showed a strong association between impulsivity and depressive symptoms in individuals with AD. This relationship may apply more to cognitive impulsivity, reflecting the role of impulsive decisions compared with impulsive actions.