Abstract
The study was designed to ascertain the socio-demographic profiles of patients suffering from co-morbid Alcohol Use Disorders and Depression, attending the General outpatient Clinic of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital. Consenting subjects recruited by a systematic sampling procedure between February and July 2011 were enlisted in the study. The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and the Beck’s Depression Inventory (BDI) were administered to each. Additional information was obtained through a self-designed socio-demographic questionnaire. Fifty nine (12.6%) of the cohort were diagnosed with Alcohol Use disorders (AUD), one hundred and thirty four (28.5%) with major depression and twenty seven (5.7%) with both AUD and major depression. The female and male genders were shown to be significantly associated with co-morbid depression and AUD respectively. The notion that women alcoholics are more vulnerable to drink in response to negative effect than male alcoholics may further explain the statistically significant higher prevalence of depression among females with AUD in comparison to males with the same co-morbidity. Formal education should be intensified in the developing world, and the need to protect the vulnerable segment of our population especially women cannot be overemphasized.
Highlights
Among individuals with Alcohol Use Disorders (AUD), data suggest gender differences in both rates of Depression [1, 2, 3] and depressive symptoms [2, 4] with women showing more Depression than men
One hundred and thirty four (28.5%) of the subjects were diagnosed with a Major Depression Episode and twenty seven (5.7%) were diagnosed with both Alcohol Use Disorders and Major Depression Episode
The female gender was shown to be significantly associated with co-morbid Depression
Summary
Among individuals with Alcohol Use Disorders (AUD), data suggest gender differences in both rates of Depression [1, 2, 3] and depressive symptoms [2, 4] with women showing more Depression than men. Such differences may merely reflect the higher rate of Depression observed among women in the general population. Some researchers have noted that the rates of co-morbid depression among alcohol-dependent men and women vary by age and race they are not as large as gender differences [6, 7]. Levels of depressive symptoms did not vary by age, marital status, educational attainment or employment status
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