Background and Aims:
Alcohol and drug addictions have a high incidence in Borderline Personality Disorder(BPD). However, the presence of addiction is rarely examined comparing an heterogeneous sample of psychiatric disorders and controls (HC).
Our aim is to compare the incidence of alcohol and drug abuse in patients with BPD, Affective disorders (AD), Psychosis (P) and HC.
Methods:
112 individuals were assessed using SCID I and II. The final sample was divided in BPD (24,1%), P (24.1%), AD (22.3%) and HC (29.5%). A self-report questionnaire was used to collect data on demographics, lifetime drug abuse and injection drug use. As screening the TWEAK test was administered, considering a score higher than 3 as indicative of alcohol abuse or addiction. The four groups were compared using chi-squared test.
Results:
BPD has higher score at TWEAK than P and HC, exhibiting a score similar to that of AD.Drug abuse in BPD is more frequent than in HC, P and AD. However, the lifetime injection drug use is similar in the three patient groups.
Conclusions:
BPD seems to behave similarly to AD for alcohol abuse. However, the incidence of druga ddiction is higher in BPD than in the other groups, confirming the literature.

ALCOHOL AND DRUG ABUSE IN PSYCHIATRIC PATIENTS AND HEALTHY CONTROLS