FAMILIAL HISTORY AND ALCOHOLISM - RECENT DATA AND CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS

Alcoholism is a complex disorder, with clinical and etiological hetero geneity, The clinical symptoms used for the diagnostic of alcoholism a re based on worldwild standard criteria, such as DSM (American Psychia tric Association) or ICD (World Health Organisation), Good agreement b etween clinicians for the diagnostic of alcoholism can he obtained wit h these classifications, The diagnostic of alcoholism with such intern ational criteria is mainly based on the cognitive and behavior consequ ences of alcohol consumption, In order to cope with the heterogeneity of alcoholism, one should analyse the different aspects of alcoholism pathogenesis. One important aspect is its high frequency within some f amilies, as many studies show It direct correlation between the risk f or alcoholism and familial frequency of alcoholism More recent studies tried to detect which clinical aspects of alcoholism are more frequen tly observed in alcoholic patients with a positive familial history. T hose studies also analysed the impact of a familial history of co-morb id psychiatric disorders on the general risk for alcoholism and the sp ecific risk far alcoholism and co-morbid psychiatric disorders, Most c linicians interested in alcoholism look far familial history of alcoho lism or psychiatric disorders, but this information is frequently inco mplete and partially used, The research on familial history of alcohol ism is nevertheless facilitated, and more valid, with the recent clini cal tools such as standard clinical questionnaires, The detection of a familial history can be in many aspects useful for establishing clini cal sub-types, predicting specific (psychiatric, social or medical) co mplications, err helping to find the most relevant treatment modality.