Frequency of Psychiatric Disorders in Drug Addicts and Non-addicts: A Case-Control Study

Addiction (drug dependence) is a health problem in many countries. In Iran, drug addiction is one of the most important preventable health problems. Comorbidity of drug abuse with other disorders is a barrier to treatment of addicts, in a way that more than 70% of addicts suffer from mental and physical disorders. Therefore, we performed this comparative study to investigate the comorbidity of mental disorders in drug addicts and non-addicts referred to the addiction rehab center of 5 th Azar Hospital in Gorgan, in 2016. Materials and Methods: The study was performed on 130 male drug addicts and 130 male healthy controls selected by available sampling. Structured interviews for drug dependence testing (based on the DSM-V-TR criteria) and the symptom checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) were used to assess the mental status of the subjects. Data were analyzed in SPSS (version 16) using t-test, Mann-Whitney U test, Chisquare and Shapiro-Wilk tests. The significance level for all comparisons was set at P <0.05. Validity and reliability of the material were assessed in a pilot study. Results: Drug addicts scored higher in all scales related to mental disorders compared with the control group. The frequency of symptoms including somatization (56.9%), obsessive-compulsive disorder (61.5%), interpersonal sensitivity (62.3%), depression (66.2%), anxiety (59.2%), hostility (42.3%), phobia (34.5%), paranoid ideation (62.6%), and psychoticism (56.9%) was higher in drug addicts. Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that the frequency of psychopathological symptoms and mental disorders is significantly higher in drug addicts compared with the normal population.