The life‐time rates of three major mood disorders and four major anxiety disorders in alcoholics and controls

Abstract

The large majority of alcohol-dependent men and women in this sample did not have any of the independent mood or anxiety disorders evaluated here. However, there was evidence of enhanced risks among alcoholics for independent bipolar, panic and social phobic disorders. Studies which do not distinguish carefully between independent and concurrent mood and anxiety disorders in alcoholics are likely to report much higher rates of co-morbid psychiatric disorders than those that distinguish between the two types of syndromes.