The Prevalence and Correlation of Depression Awareness in Patients with Alcoholic Use Disorder in Thailand

Abstract

Introduction: Alcoholic use disorder is a common public health problem in every country. It is quite common that an alcohol use disorder has co-morbidities with other psychiatric disorders. To successfully treat patients with alcoholic use disorder the comorbidities must betreatedas well.

Aim: To examine the prevalence of depression and correlation of depression awareness in patients with alcoholic use disorder in Thailand.

Methods: Inpatients and outpatients who were diagnosed with alcoholic use disorder andalcohol dependencewere invited to participate in this research. Subjects who had any previoushistory of depressive disorder treatment were excluded. The awareness of depression was determined by the Illness Perception Questionnaire-Revised, IPQ-R. Depressive disorder was determined by the Thai version of the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9).

                 Results: Eighty-nine subjects with alcoholic use disorder agreed to join this research. Forty-sevenof the 89 (52.8%) had depression indicated by the PHQ-9 scale. Thirty-five of 47 (74.47%) were aware that they had depression and that is was related to alcohol use. Using the logistic regression analysis, regular income and more years of education were significant factors related to the awareness score (p=0.01,p=0.08).

           Conclusion: There is high prevalence of depression in patients with alcoholic use disorder and most of them had not received treatment for depression.