PHARMACOLOGICAL TREATMENT FOR ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY-DISORDER ALCOHOLICS - A PRELIMINARY-STUDY

A short time ago, we reported that a subgroup of hospitalized alcoholi c men with comorbid antisocial personality disorder (ASP) seemed to be nefit significantly from antidepressant medication at the end of a 6-m onth period in a double-blind, random assignment, placebo-controlled s tudy. In a reanalysis of those data, we divided the ASP alcoholic grou p (n = 29) into those who did (n = 15) and who did not (n = 14) also s atisfy DSM-III-R criteria for an additional current mood and/or anxiet y disorder and then compared the 6-month outcomes of these two smaller subgroups. Despite the small ns, the results for most drinking outcom e measures indicated: (1) that ASP alcoholics with a current mood/anxi ety disorder improved significantly more with pharmacological treatmen t, relative to placebo; and (2) that ASP alcoholics with no current mo od/anxiety disorder failed to respond differentially to pharmacologica l treatment over the 6-month period. These findings suggest a possibly useful and inexpensive approach to the long-term management of a very difficult-to-treat subgroup of men substance abusers.