Non-psychotic mental disorders in opioid abusers
Sivolap, I.P.
Zhurnal Nevrologii i Psikhiatrii Imeni S.S. Korsakova 102(1): 26-29
2002
ISSN/ISBN: 1997-7298 PMID: 11842618 Document Number: 545006
The purpose of the study was to estimate the structure and prognostic value of mental disorders in opioid addiction. 173 males and 34 females aged 16-58 years with opioid addiction duration from 6 months to 14 years were studied. Mental disorders were mostly expressed at the peak of withdrawal state and in the early post-withdrawal period but they occurred at other stages of the illness. Anxiety was leading in the picture of psychic disturbances, representing some kind of "a psychopathologic background", on which other disorders (phobias, hypochondriac, psychopath-like and others) developed or intensified. Marked mental and physical discomfort intolerance dominates in personality change spectrum of the opioid users. The anxiety intensity did not correlate with withdrawal symptom-complex severity. But anxiety state plays an essential role in nonpsychotic disturbance formation and addictive disorders proper. Stable and progredient anxiety hypochondriac disorders determine a pathological development of the patient's personality and unfavourable disease prognosis.