COMORBID ANXIETY DISORDER AMONG PATIENTS WITH SUBSTANCE-ABUSE DISORDERS - RISK-FACTORS ON INITIAL EVALUATION

The authors sought to determine whether early assessment of newly abst inent alcoholic/addicted patients can help identify those patients at risk for later anxiety disorder (RD). Diagnoses of AD were made after 3 weeks. From a sample of 642 consecutive outpatients and inpatients, 234 were assessed as having only substance-related disorders (SRD) and 36 had both an SRD and an AD. The remaining 312 patients had other co morbid conditions with SRD. After 3 weeks of abstinence (Time 2), a ps ychiatrist made a current DSM-III-R diagnosis based on all available d ata. This study revealed that the following characteristics at Time 1 (intake) were associated with diagnosis of an AD at Time 2: female sex , history of panic attacks or suicidal ideation, previous outpatient c are, previous antidepressant or neuroleptic medication, and higher sco res on most of the self-rated scales and all of the psychiatric scales .