Evaluation of factors associated with high risk behaviour with alcohol dependence syndrome – A hospital based observational study

Background: Alcohol is the world's third largest risk factor for disease and disability. The mortality and morbidity associated with alcoholism is compounded by the concept of risk taking. Heavy alcohol use is associated with varieties of high risk behavior such as motor vehicle accidents, high risk sexual behavior, criminal acts and self injurious behavior. Aims and objectives: To evaluate the association between severity of alcohol dependence and high risk taking behavior, sociodemographic factors and personality variables in male patients with alcohol dependence syndrome attending a tertiary care hospital in south India. Methods: The study is an observational study conducted in the department of psychiatry in a tertiary care teaching hospital. The severity of alcohol dependence was assessed using Severity of Alcohol Dependence Questionnaire and relationship of high- risk behavior to alcohol use was determined by asking about that ‘critical incident’ to define the role of alcohol during the incident. Results: A total of 50 subjects were included in the final analysis out of which 28(56%) belonged to 20 to 40 years and the remaining 22 (44%) belonged to 41 to 60 year age group. The high risk behavior was 66% (95% CI 51.2% to 78.8%) in the study population. The association between severity of alcohol dependence and high risk behavior, the association between sensation seeking score, impulsivity score and high risk behavior was statistically significant (p-value