Temperament and character inventory (TCI) personality profile of alcohol misuse patients with and without a co-occurring mood or anxiety disorder

Background

Alcohol use disorders (AUDs) are among the leading public health problems nowadays. Very often they co-occur with other psychiatric disorders, especially mood and anxiety disorders.

Quite a few studies exist that explore personality characteristics in individuals with alcohol misuse and a co-occuring mental disorder.

Such studies are of primary importance if we are to test the hypothesis that certain genetically inherited personality traits are a common risk factor for AUD and various externalizing and internalizing mental disorders.

Materials and methods

We examined two statistically matched groups (20 patients in each) of AUD patients (ICD-10 diagnosis of alcohol abuse or dependence). The first group consisted of patients with a lifetime diagnosis of mood/and or anxiety disorder and the second group included AUD patients without comorbid disorders. Lifetime psychiatric history was assessed “Composite International Diagnostic Interview” ver. 2.1 /lifetime/.

All the participants filled in the “Temperament and Character Inventory” self-evaluation questionnaire [1]. Data were processed with Statgraphics ver. 8.0.

Results

Preliminary results (the study is still ongoing) show that patients with a co-occurring mood and/or anxiety disorder tend to score much higher on harm-avoidance and lower on self-directedness subscales.

Taken together, these results may be interpreted as a higher propensity to personality deviations in these patients, most likely from the so-called cluster “C” personality register [2].

Conclusions

Additional studies with larger sample sizes are needed to further investigate the complex interaction and causal relationships between mood and anxiety disorders and alcohol misuse.