Research Article
Factors Associated With a Quality of Life Decrease in Alcoholic Patients Who Sought Treatment
Sibele Faller1*, Neusa Sica da Rocha2, Daniela Benzano1, Ana Flávia Silva Lima2, Anderson Ravy Stolf1, Anne Orgler Sordi1, Helena Moura1,Ana Carolina Peuker1, George E. Woody3, Brazilian ASI Group4, Flavio Pechansky1, Felix Kessler1 and Lísia von Diemen1, Maria Lucia Souza-Formigoni5, Marcelo Santos Cruz6, Sílvia Brasiliano71Center for Drug and Alcohol Research, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil
2Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Graduate Program in Medical Sciences: Psychiatry-UFRGS-Brazil
3Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania and Treatment Research Institute, Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA
5Department of Psychobiology, Federal University of Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil
6Psychiatric Institute, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
7Women Drug Dependent Treatment Center, University of Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil
- Corresponding Author:
- Sibele Faller, BA, MSc
Center for Drug and Alcohol Research
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS)
68-Carvalho Monteiro St., ap 302
CEP: 90470-100. Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
Tel: 55 513 359 6471
E-mail: lisiavd@gmail.com
Received date: May 25, 2015; Accepted date: June 16, 2015; Published date: June 23, 2015
Citation: Faller S, da Rocha NS, Benzano D, Lima AFS, Stolf AR, et al. (2015) Factors Associated With a Quality of Life Decrease in Alcoholic Patients Who Sought Treatment. J Addict Res Ther 6:232. doi:10.4172/2155-6105.1000232
Copyright: © 2015 Faller S, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Objective: We investigate the quality of life (QoL) of subjects with alcohol abuse/dependence, and we focus on aspects that are associated with alcohol consumption.
Methods: We included inpatients and outpatients (n=174) of an addiction treatment program. All of the patients had had problems related to alcohol within the last 30 days. We used the WHOQOL-BREF to measure the patients’ QoL, and we used the ASI-6 to investigate the severity of problems related to alcohol and substance use. The main outcome measures considered for the linear regression analyses were the WHOQOL-BREF domains. The independent factors were the scores in the ASI-6 areas.
Results: We found a negative correlation between the WHOQOL-BREF and the ASI-6. Significant correlations were included in the multiple linear regression pattern, which considered p<0.05 to be the cut off of statistical significance. We examined the regression analyses between the ASI-6 summary scores and the WHOQOL-BREF domains using variables that presented statistical significance in the correlation analysis. All ASI-6 problem areas showed negative correlations with domains.
Conclusion: The decrease in QoL was not directly linked to the severity of alcohol use but rather with its consequences. The ASI-6 medical area was associated with a lower QoL in all of its domains. Measures of the problems related to alcohol misuse seem to be a significant predictor of QoL scores; the more often that alcohol is a problem in a patient’s life, the worse the patient’s QoL will be. Instead of treatment, other strategies should be developed to address these problem areas to not only reduce substance use but also to significantly improve the QoL of alcoholics.