Gender Differences in Interpersonal Problems of Alcohol-Dependent Patients and Healthy Controls

Sandra E Mueller,Marc Walter,Sylvie Petitjean,Bigna Degen,Gerhard A Wiesbeck

doi:10.3390/ijerph6123010

Sandra E Mueller, Marc Walter + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph6123010

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Abstract

Alcohol dependence is a heavy burden on patients, their families, and society. Epidemiological studies indicate that alcohol dependence will affect many individuals at some time in their lives, with men affected more frequently than women. Since alcohol-dependent patients often exhibit a lack of social skills and suffer from interpersonal problems, the aim of this study is to elucidate whether men and women experience the same interpersonal problems. Eighty-five alcohol-dependent patients (48 men; 37 women) after detoxification and 62 healthy controls (35 men; 27 women) were recruited. Interpersonal problems were measured with the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP-64). Additionally, alcohol-dependent patients were interviewed with the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and were subtyped according to Lesch’s Alcohol Typology (LAT). There were no significant gender differences in the AUDIT and LAT between alcohol-dependent men and women. Interpersonal problems of alcohol-dependent men differed significantly in one out of eight dimensions from controls; alcohol-dependent men perceive themselves as colder than male controls. Alcohol-dependent women differed in four out of eight interpersonal dimensions from female controls. Alcohol-dependent women rated themselves as significantly more vindictive, more introverted, more overly accommodating and more intrusive than female controls. Results suggest that alcohol-dependent men and women suffer from different interpersonal problems and furthermore alcohol-dependent women perceive more interpersonal problems, whereas the severity of alcohol dependence did not differ between the groups. Our findings indicate that alcohol-dependent women may profit more from a gender-specific treatment approach aimed at improving treatment outcome than alcohol-dependent men.

Highlights

Research on alcoholism initially focused predominantly on alcohol-dependent men, resulting in under-representation of women with alcohol use disorder
The current study revealed as an overall group effect that alcohol-dependent patients reported a higher severity of interpersonal problems than healthy controls
Further analyses revealed that this difference is mainly mediated by alcohol-dependent women, irrespective of the severity of their alcohol dependence

Summary

Introduction

Research on alcoholism initially focused predominantly on alcohol-dependent men, resulting in under-representation of women with alcohol use disorder. Overall men are more likely to suffer from alcohol use disorders [2]; relapse rates and time to relapse are similar across the genders [3]. A few studies have reported that women and men often begin treatment with severe alcohol problems [4,5,6] but that women are more likely to have poor prognostic characteristics for treatment outcome [6,7]. In a study by Ross and colleagues [8], alcohol-dependent men reported drinking greater absolute amounts of alcohol, with earlier onset of heavy drinking than women [9]. Women reported more abstinent days and fewer drinks per day than men 3 months prior to the baseline measurement it appeared that women were heavier drinkers than men with respect to the index of drinking to intoxication [10]

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