Alcoholism and typology: findings in an Irish private hospital population

To assess the validity of alcoholic typology in an Irish private hospital population.

We interviewed a randomly selected group of inpatient and outpatient alcoholics (N = 48, 42 male) in a private hospital in Ireland. Subjects had a structured psychiatric interview, including completion of a severity of alcohol dependence questionnaire, a Hamilton depression rating scale and a typology questionnaire.

We found that there were differences between groups of alcoholics when divided according to Cloninger's typology hypothesis and by Von Knorring's age of onset criteria. The Type 2 early age of onset alcoholics (n = 23) had a significantly higher percentage of positive family histories of alcoholism, (p < .01), a higher percentage of sociopathic traits (p < .01) and increased severity of alcoholism (p < .05), relative to the Type 1 late age of onset alcoholics (n = 25). The Type 2 alcoholics also had increased daily consumption of alcohol in the month prior to admission, poor behavioral tolerance to the effects of alcohol and more fights that the Type 1 alcoholics.

We concluded that there is validity to alcohol typology theory in relation to this Irish private hospital population and that age of onset is a useful defining criterion.