Temperament and character inventory (TCI) personality profile and sub-typing in alcoholic patients: A controlled study

Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) personality profile w as used to compare alcohol-dependent patients with non-psychiatric control subjects, and a search made for sub-types of alcoholics with different TCI profiles, using the criteria age of onset of alcohol-related problems, pate rnal dependence on alcohol and familial antecedents of alcohol dependence. Alcohol-dependent patients (n = 38) were characterized by higher Novelty-Se eking [corresponding to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorde rs (4th edition) group B personality type] and lower Self-Directedness than non-psychiatric control subjects (n = 47). Lower Self-Directedness indicat es a higher probability of personality disorder in the alcohol-dependent po pulation. Only age of onset of alcohol-related problems delineated the two sub-populations with different TCI profiles: early-onset alcoholics (less t han or equal to 25 years of age, n = 19), but not late-onset ones (n = 16), in comparison with control subjects, were associated with higher Novelty-S eeking. Both early and late-onset patients scored lower on Self-Directednes s than control subjects. Self-Directedness and Cooperation scores were lowe r in early-onset than in late-onset patients. These results in part support Cloninger's typology, and the TCI data add to evidence concerning a higher probability of personality disorder in alcohol-dependent patients, particu larly those with early-onset.