Interpersonal problems of alcohol use disorder patients undergoing a physical exercise intervention – a randomised controlled trial

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether the interpersonal relationships of patients suffering from alcohol use disorder (AUD) might be improved as a result of an exercise intervention. Participants were randomised to either treatment as usual (TAU), or TAU in conjunction with participation in one of two intervention arms: exercising individually or supervised group exercise. The Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP-64) was used to assess self-perceived interpersonal problems. The subscales where the AUD patients reported significantly more interpersonal problems were: vindictive, cold, socially inhibited and non-assertive. In all, 116 predominantly male patients participated: an experimental sample of 81, and a control sample of 36. At baseline, on all the IIP subscales, the AUD population achieved higher scores as measured by the IIP than a healthy population. The subscales where the AUD patients reported significantly more interpersonal problems were: vindictive, cold, socially inhibited and non-assertive. The male AUD patients achieved significantly higher scores on the domineering subscale, whereas the female AUD patients achieved significantly higher scores on the non-assertive, exploitable and overly nurturant subscales. On none of the subscales did the intervention group achieve significant changes in IIP scores between pre-and post-treatment. These findings suggest that when working with alcohol patients, it is as important to understand the emotional context of the drinking as it is to target the symptoms of the drinking problems.

The Benefits of Physical Exercise on Mental Disorders and Quality of Life in Substance Use Disorders Patients. Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Of the 59 studies, 24 include only AUD patients [4][5][6]29,[46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][77][78][79][80], 15 include patients who met criteria for different substances disorders, describing groups among which are AUD or SUD patients [13,14,16,18,20,26,28,[62][63][64]66,67,70,72], eight studies include methamphetamine dependence patients [10][11][12]17,27,68,73,76], five studies include heroin or opioids dependence patients [21,25,30,65,...…”

“…Of the selected studies, 34 were experimental studies with randomized sampling [4,5,8,9,11,12,15,17,18,21,25,27,29,30,46,48,49,52,54,55,[59][60][61][63][64][65][68][69][70][71][74][75][76][77], while the rest were quasi-experimental [6,7,10,13,14,16,20,22,26,28,47,50,51,53,[56][57][58]62,…”

“…Aerobic exercise was the most used type of program, finding 27 studies that used this type of exercise [4,5,7,8,[10][11][12][13]16,18,22,26,46,49,50,56,57,[59][60][61]67,[74][75][76][77][78][79]. In addition, 14 studies were found that used exercise programs related to body-mind practices, such as yoga, tai chi or qigong [9,15,21,[28][29][30]54,55,[64][65][66]70,71,73], 10 who used combined strength and aerobic exercise [6,17,20,27,32,47,48,52,68,…”

Can Rehabilitation in Nature Improve Self-Perceived Interpersonal Problems? A Matched-Control Study

“…Non-significant findings are not unique to this study. Other studies trying a apply the IIP to a non-psychotherapeutic intervention have also failed to find the effects of interventions hoped to lead to changes in the IIP [ 53 ], indicating that self-perceived interpersonal problems may require an explicit and continuous focus and therapeutic scaffolding to change.…”

Saying yes or no to physical activity – A comparative cohort analysis of patients seeking treatment for Alcohol Use Disorder

“…Psychological research on alcohol abuse more generally suggest taking the individual's need for individuation and independence into account ( Roessler, Mau, & Ekstrøm, 2018 ). Instead of focusing on possible barriers, we should perhaps seek to understand people's individual needs, and open up the possibilities that physical activity can offer.…”