Abstract:The study aims to ascertain the co-morbidity of Alcohol and Depression among patients attending the general outpatient clinic of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital. Via a system sampling method; 470 consenting subjects were enlisted in the study. The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Inventory (AUDIT) and the Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI) were administered to each. Only one hundred and eighty five subjects met the criteria for the second stage of the study, (a score of 18 and above on the BDI and/or a score of 5 and above on AUDIT). Results showed that there was a significantly higher prevalence of Alcohol Use Disorders among those with higher depressive symptoms. Furthermore, about (45.8%) half of these with Alcohol Use Disorders were diagnosed with depression in comparison to 26.0% of those without Alcohol Use Disorder. In agreement with other studies, there was a greater likelihood of depression among the subjects who were diagnosed with AUD. Nevertheless, the specific mechanism underlying this co-morbidity is yet to be elucidated.

The study was designed to ascertain the socio-demographic profiles of patients suffering from co-morbid Alcohol Use Disorders and Depression, attending the General outpatient Clinic of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital. Consenting subjects recruited by a systematic sampling procedure between February and July 2011 were enlisted in the study. The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and the Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI) were administered to each. Additional information was obtained through a self-designed socio-demographic questionnaire. Fifty nine (12.6%) of the cohort were diagnosed with Alcohol Use disorders (AUD), one hundred and thirty four (28.5%) with major depression and twenty seven (5.7%) with both AUD and major depression. The female and male genders were shown to be significantly associated with co-morbid depression and AUD respectively. The notion that women alcoholics are more vulnerable to drink in response to negative effect than male alcoholics may further explain the statistically significant higher prevalence of depression among females with AUD in comparison to males with the same co-morbidity. Formal education should be intensified in the developing world, and the need to protect the vulnerable segment of our population especially women cannot be overemphasized.