COMORBIDITY AND COTRANSMISSION OF ALCOHOLISM, ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION

This paper applies data from a family study of depression to assess pa tterns of comorbidity and co-transmission of alcoholism, anxiety disor ders, and major depression. We found that all three disorders were str ongly transmissible; however, alcoholism demonstrated the greatest deg ree of familial aggregation. The pairwise associations among depressio n, anxiety and alcoholism indicated that the traits are co-transmitted in families, especially depression and anxiety. Individual associatio ns between traits (or comorbidity) were entirely explained by transmit ted (perhaps genetic) agents, because the correlations between traits due to random environment were not significant. These findings have im portant implications for treatment, psychiatric nosology, and aetiolog ical investigations of these conditions.