The impact of alcoholism on the family. Relationship between degree of alcoholism and psychiatric symptomatology.

Abstract

The relationship between the drinking behavior of an alcoholic spouse and the psychiatric symptoms of both spouses was examined in 31 families. The subjects were White, middle-aged (wives'' mean age being 40, husbands'' 43), middle- and upper-middle class, well-educated and married for an average of 16 yr. Of the 31 alcoholics (8 women), 18 were abstinent and 10 were drinking throughout the 6 mo. study period, and 3 were drinking at the start of the study but were abstinent at its conclusion. Data collected by means of the Self-Administered Alcoholism Screening Test (SAAST) were grouped to yield 3 subscores rating physical consequences and behavioral-social consequences of alcoholism as well as treatment history. Both spouses completed this test, but the SAAST scores of alcoholic spouses only were analyzed. On the SCL-90 (symptom checklist-90), which indicates the degree of symptomatology on 9 psychiatric dimensions, both alcoholics and their mates had levels of symptomatology higher than those of a sample of normal subjects but lower than those of a sample of psychiatric outpatients. The social-behavioral consequences of alcoholism, as measured by SAAST subscores of alcoholic spouses, were associated with the SCL-90 scores of nonalcoholic spouses, regardless of the sex of the alcoholic. This pattern was strongest in the 10 families in which the alcoholic was drinking throughout the study. The Pearson product-moment correlations between social-behavioral consequences of alcoholism and psychiatric symptoms were as follows: somatization, 0.82 (P < 0.01); obsessive-compulsive symptoms, 0.80 (P < 0.01); interpersonal sensitivity, 0.87 (P < 0.001); depression, 0.85 (P < 0.01); anxiety, 0.87 (P < 0.001); hostility, 0.83 (P < 0.01); phobic anxiety, 0.86 (P < 0.001); and psychoticism, 0.88 (P < 0.001).