Dual Diagnosis

Introduction: Alcohol abuse used to be a common phenomenon mainly among male in Albania. Women usually can be classified as social drinkers.

 

Aim: The aim of this study is to highlight common co-morbidity of alcohol abuse in Albania.

 

Materials & Methods: This is a retrospective study that was conducted at the Clinic of Toxicology and Addictology at Mother Teresa University Hospital during January 2012-june 2013. In this study, 330 patients were included. The diagnosis of alcoholism was based on lab exams and anamnesis.

 

Results: Out of 330 patients 98% were male. 174 of these patients had at least one other diagnosis except alcoholism, from which 107 had dual diagnosis. We have observed statistically significant positive correlation between the time and the amount of alcohol abuse and the number of comorbid diagnosis, respectively (rho=0.2 95% CI 0.05-0.26 p<0.01 and rho=0.2 95% CI 0.079-0.382 p<0.01). In 58.2% of patients with comorbidity, alcohol abuse was considered the main factor responsible for the comorbid diagnosis i.e., alcoholic hepatitis, alcoholic pancreatitis, alcoholic liver cirrhosis, psychiatric diseases, except schizophrenia and post traumatic disorder. Sixty-six patients had a dual diagnosis, alcohol abuse and psychiatric disorder. From these, the most prevalent was anxiety disorder in 45.5% of patients. Forty-five patients had alcoholic hepatitis, 40.4% of patients had Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome and equally 40.4% had polyneuropathy.

 

Conclusions: As it is known that long term alcohol abuse virtually causes different organ injury, it is important that all alcohol abuse patients must be carefully evaluated for co-morbidity.