[Alcohol Dependence: one or more nosological entities? Identifying geographical diversities among patients through...

although there is an overabundance of terms that over time have connoted the phenomenon usually defined as Alcoholism, or Alcohol Dependence, this has been universally considered a unitary disease by experts, the media and lay people.

to investigate whether there is a variety of configurations of alcohol dependence and alcohol abuse corresponding to different countries.

secondary analysis of a dataset from a European project conducted in 2013-2014. The analysis was carried out mainly based on both artificial intelligence and statistical tools: Self Organizing Map (SOM) Neural Network, Multidimensional Scaling Population Algorithm (MSPA), and K-Means clustering algorithm.

1,767 participants in a European project treated in specialist alcohol dependence units in 9 countries/regions of Europe.

patients were interviewed to ascertain their correspondence to the 11 DSM-4 symptoms used for the diagnosis of 'alcohol dependence' and 'alcohol abuse', following up on a previous study that used traditional statistical methodology.

results confirm that the symptoms of 'alcohol dependence' and 'alcohol abuse' identified by the DSM-4 are distributed according to distinct European geographical macroareas: Central-Northern and Southern, with an intermediate macroarea. These could partly correspond to different typologies of drinking cultures in the different macroareas.

alcoholism does not appear to be a unitary disease, but varies according to different cultures and social contexts, and should be treated appropriately.