A comparison of the beliefs of Indian alcohol-dependent patients and theirclose family members on their reasons for relapse

Aims. To study and compare the perspectives of relapsed alcohol-dependent p atients and their family members regarding relapse precipitants. Design. Ob servational, cross-sectional survey. Setting. Art addiction centre in north ern India. Participants. Thirty consecutive male patients attending the cen tre with relapse of alcohol dependence following previous inpatient treatme nt, and their repsective family members. Measurements. Relapse precipitants , as generated by a 25-item, three-factor, self-report inventory eliciting the subjects' beliefs about events or circumstances leading to relapse. Fin dings. Both the patients and their families listed items related to 'reduce d cognitive vigilance' as the most common relapse precipitants. Reasons per taining to external situations and euphoric states as well as unpleasant mo od states were also frequently reported by them. The rank order correlation between the items by patients and their families war positive and statisti cally significant (r = 0.80, p < 0.001). Individual item-wise comparison by chi-squared test yielded statistically significant difference in only one of 25 items. Conclusions. There was a high degree of concordance between th e patients and their family members regarding beliefs about precipitants of alcoholic relapse.