Penick E C, Powell B J, Campbell J, Liskow B I, Nickel E J, Dale T M, Thomas H M, Laster L J, Noble E
Department of Psychiatry, Kansas University Medical Center, Kansas City 66160-7341, USA.
Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 1996 May;20(3):477-84. doi: 10.1111/j.1530-0277.1996.tb01078.x.
A short time ago, we reported that a subgroup of hospitalized alcoholic men with comorbid antisocial personality disorder (ASP) seemed to benefit significantly from antidepressant medication at the end of a 6-month period in a double-blind, random assignment, placebo-controlled study. In a reanalysis of those data, we divided the ASP alcoholic group (n = 29) into those who did (n = 15) and who did not (n = 14) also satisfy DSM-III-R criteria for an additional current mood and/or anxiety disorder and then compared the 6-month outcomes of these two smaller subgroups. Despite the small ns, the results for most drinking outcome measures indicated: (1) that ASP alcoholics with a current mood/anxiety disorder improved significantly more with pharmacological treatment, relative to placebo; and (2) that ASP alcoholics with no current mood/anxiety disorder failed to respond differentially to pharmacological treatment over the 6-month period. These findings suggest a possibly useful and inexpensive approach to the long-term management of a very difficult-to-treat subgroup of men substance abusers.
