A new study published in 2016 found that people with social anxiety are at increased risk for alcohol use disorders. drug and alcohol addiction. The findings of this study provide evidence that this association is unique to social anxiety and not to other symptoms of anxiety disorders.
Alcohol use disorders are chronic medical conditions characterized by an inability to control alcohol consumption despite its negative impact on health, relationships and daily living. This includes symptoms ranging from tolerance (requiring more alcohol to get the same effect) to withdrawal symptoms when alcohol use is reduced or stopped.
Social anxiety disorder, also known as social phobia, is a mental health disorder characterized by intense fear and anxiety in social situations. People with social anxiety disorder often worry about being judged, embarrassed, or humiliated by others, and avoid social interaction whenever possible.
Social anxiety disorder has been associated with the development of alcohol use disorders. large scale research and after that review It raised questions about the relationship between these two conditions. These conflicting findings prompted the investigators in this study to review the available data.
“During my postdoctoral years, I participated in a Norwegian study that provided different types of statistical evidence that social phobia is a risk factor for alcohol use disorders,” said study author Tom Mr Rosenstrom said. PsyTEAM research group at the University of Helsinki. “However, one large study published in the same year found no association, and a subsequent review found studies to support the view that the evidence on this topic was mixed and more data were needed. Quoted.”
“I wanted to act on this because causal evidence is important for treatment research but difficult to obtain in psychiatric epidemiology. Because we had access to some of the data, but we didn’t see it there.. Moreover, collecting this kind of population sample is very expensive, and we probably want to address this issue simply by ‘more data’. It would be too expensive to solve with
In the current study, researchers used two waves from the National Comorbidity Study (NCS), a large epidemiological study conducted in the United States to assess the prevalence and correlations of mental disorders in the general population. data were analyzed.
The first wave (NCS-1) ran from 1990-1992. It involved a large sample of ages 15 to her 54 from different parts of the 48 contiguous US states. The second wave (NCS-2) was a follow-up study conducted in 2001-2002. Of the 8,098 original respondents who attended NCS-1, researchers focused their analysis on a subset of her 5,001 who attended his NCS-2. .
Data included information on 12-month DSM diagnoses for social phobia, alcoholism/abuse, agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, simple phobia, and post-traumatic distress .
Researchers combined theoretical analysis and statistical techniques to explore the relationship between social anxiety disorder and alcohol use disorders. They were particularly interested in the concept of ‘temporality’, which refers to the order of events over time. In other words, they want to understand whether having a social anxiety disorder at baseline (initial assessment) is associated with an increased likelihood of developing an alcohol use disorder at a later time point (follow-up assessment). I was thinking.
Researchers are also interested in the concept of ‘specificity’, meaning whether the relationship between social anxiety disorder and alcohol use disorder is unique, or whether other anxiety disorders also predict the development of alcohol use disorder. was
Rosenstrom and his colleagues found evidence of both temporality and singularity. Social anxiety disorder at baseline was significantly associated with a higher probability of alcohol use disorder at follow-up assessment. This association remained significant after adjusting for age, sex, baseline alcohol use disorder status, and other anxiety disorders. Of note, social anxiety disorder was the only anxiety disorder that consistently predicted alcohol use disorders across all adjustments.
The results indicate that social phobia, on average, increases the risk of subsequent alcohol use disorders, and despite claims in the literature, data on this issue may not be mixed. ‘” Rosenstrom told Cypost.
But what explains the difference in findings? The researchers said it was due to different methodological choices.
For example, a previous study jointly analyzed data from two large survey samples, the NCS and the National Epidemiological Survey of Alcohol and Related Diseases (NESARC). These two studies differed in the time intervals between baseline and follow-up interviews. Although the data were pooled together, the researchers did not consider different time intervals, which could affect the interpretation of causality. In contrast, Rosenstrom and his colleagues focused specifically on NCS data.
New studies have some limitations of their own, including the inability to access NESARC data for full reanalysis. However, the researchers emphasized that the data support the theory that social anxiety has a direct impact on the risk of developing an alcohol use disorder when temporality is properly considered and a variety of factors are taken into account. .
The survey results are also consistent with previous research Published by Rosenstrom and his colleagues. The study, which analyzed data from 2,801 Norwegian adult twins, found a clear and strong relationship between social anxiety disorder and alcohol use disorders, putting people with social anxiety at risk of experiencing alcohol-related problems. was suggested to be high.
“Successfully treating social anxiety may have cumulative benefits in reducing substance use disorders in the population, but more work is needed to ensure that,” Rosenstrom said. . “While there are always serious caveats in psychiatric epidemiology, until further debate emerges, it seems that the full evidence that social phobia is a risk factor for alcohol use disorders is no longer mixed. Masu.”
the study, “Social anxiety disorder is a risk factor for alcohol use problems in the National Comorbidity Surveywas written by Tom H. Rosenstrom and Fartein Ask Torvik.
