A Prospective Correlation Study Between Alcohol Dependence and Depressive Episode Before and After Treatment Of The Dependence

BACKGROUND: Alcohol use is quite common in all over the world. It leads to widespread losses in terms of physical injuries and deterioration of mental health. As per various studies the prevalence of Alcohol use disorder is 17.4% in general population. It accounts for 20%-30% of all hospital admissions in India. The co-occurrence of depression and alcohol dependence is about 16%-68% in general population. Causal relationship between alcohol use disorder and depression has been attributed to alcohol use disorder causing depression or depression causing alcohol use disorder. AIMS & OBJECTIVES: To find out the association between alcohol dependence and depressive episode and also improvement of depression with the treatment of dependence METHODOLGY: It was a descriptive epidemiological study with cross sectional design. After getting ethical clearance, data was collected from consenting patients in psychiatry OPD over 6 months period with detailed interviews regarding their basic demographics. Dependence and withdrawal of alcohol and depressive disorder among the cases were established using ICD 10 criteria and interviewed using AUDIT, CIWA, HAM-D scale. Then follow-up assessment was done after 2 weeks, 1 month and optional after 2 months. RESULT: Mean HAMD score for the study subjects decreased with advancement of treatment from 19.34 on Day 0, 9.63 on Day 14, 7.94 on 1 month to finally 7.20 on 2 month. CONCLUSION: It was found that significant improvement of depression with advancement of treatment of alcohol dependence.