Psychiatric diagnostic predispositions to alcoholism

Various authors have described pre-alcoholic psychopathology in female problem drinkers;¹ however, actual studies of rigorously defined antecedent and concurrent psychiatric disorders have been few. More recently, several authors have reported that both affective disorder and antisocial personality are quite prevalent as primary diagnoses in hospitalized alcoholic women,^2,3,4 but the risk of subsequent alcoholism in women with these and other psychiatric syndromes needs to be clarified. In this study we investigate the prevalence of alcoholism in three populations of women with serious psychopathology. The first is a sample of psychiatrically hospitalized women with a history of depression at some time in their lives (hospitalized sample); second is a felon sample of women on probation and parole (felon sample); and third is a sample of female narcotics addicts admitted to the United States Public Health Service facility at Lexington, Kentucky for detoxification and treatment (Lexington sample). Our data set is unique in that despite being collected at different times and at different locations, uniform diagnostic criteria and uniform interview schedules were employed.^5,6.