High comorbidity of DSM mood and anxiety disorders found among substance use disorder patients

May 28 2013

Authors used both DSM-IV and DCPR criteria in a sample 
of substance abuse outpatients to verify if DCPR might expand the psychological
 assessment in SUD settings.

Forty patients (69%) received at least one DSM-IV
 diagnosis while 18 (31%) had no DSM-IV diagnoses. Fifty-one patients (87.9%)
received at least one DCPR diagnosis while 7 (12.1%) did not satisfy any DCPR.

The more frequently cooccurrent DCPR syndromes were: demoralization and
functional somatic symptoms secondary to psychiatric disorders (61.1%), alexithymia
 and illness denial (57.1%), alexithymia and functional somatic symptoms 
secondary to psychiatric disorders (55.6%), and alexithymia and demoralization
(55.2%).

Thirty-six patients (62.1%) had at least one DSM-IV and one DCPR
 diagnosis. On the contrary, 3 (5.1%) patients received neither a DCPR nor a DSM 
diagnosis, 15 (25.9%) had only a DCPR diagnosis, and 4 (6.9%) had only a DSM-IV 
diagnosis. The present findings confirm a high comorbidity of DSM mood and 
anxiety disorders and SUDs and a high
presence of alexithymia, denial and demoralization among SUD patients.

They 
also show a high percentage of SUD patients with a DCPR syndrome without a DSM
 diagnosis and a lower percentage of those identified by DSM and not by the DCPR criteria.