SUJIT VARMA, Post Graduate Student, Department of Psychiatry. Kasturba Medical College. Manipal-576 119.
Indian J Psychiatry. 2000 Oct;42(4):363-9.
To generate homogeneous clusters of alcoholics and to check the empirical stability of the clusters. Patients from consecutive admissions were assessed by face to face interview on 7 or 8 post abstinence day in a cross-sectional design. 73 male inpatients satisfying DSM-IV criteria of alcohol dependence syndrome without significant physical or cognitive deficits formed the sample. Apart from socio demographic variables, twelve other parameters were assessed with appropriate instruments over a span of last six months. Cluster analysis was followed by ANOVA on the twelve variables between the clusters. Stability of the clusters was checked by a three step statistical technique. Two clusters with 61 subjects and 12 subjects were accepted. ANOVA showed significant difference on nine out of twelve variables. Throughout the three steps of the check mechanism eight variables were found to consistently discriminate the two clusters. On a small sample of hospitalized alcoholics using twelve parameters we could obtain a preliminary evidence that subtypes simulating Type A - Type B could occur in a different sociocultural setting. Further studies on a bigger sample with data on treatment response are indicated.
为了生成同质的酗酒者群体，并检验群体的经验稳定性。采用横断面设计，在 7 或 8 个戒断日后，通过面对面访谈对连续入院的患者进行评估。该样本包括 73 名满足 DSM-IV 酒精依赖综合征标准、无明显躯体或认知缺陷的男性住院患者。除了社会人口统计学变量外，还使用适当的工具在过去六个月的时间跨度内评估了其他 12 个参数。对 12 个变量进行聚类分析后，对聚类间进行方差分析。通过三步统计学技术检查集群的稳定性。接受了 2 个聚类，每个聚类有 61 名和 12 名受试者。方差分析显示 12 个变量中有 9 个存在显著差异。在检查机制的三个步骤中，有 8 个变量被发现可以始终如一地区分两个聚类。在一个使用 12 个参数的小样本住院酗酒者中，我们可以初步证明，在不同的社会文化环境中可能会出现类似于 A 型和 B 型的亚型。需要进一步在更大的样本中进行研究，并收集有关治疗反应的数据。
