TUESDAY, Nov. 12, 2002 (HealthDayNews) -- Teens and young adults who abuse alcohol and drugs could be increasing their odds of psychological troubles down the road, new research says.
While other studies have confirmed an association between early drug abuse and later psychological disorders, there has been a chicken-and-egg controversy about the link: Is drug and alcohol abuse primarily due to pre-existing psychological disorders, or are the disorders a result of drug and alcohol abuse?
In a new, longitudinal study, researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York followed more than 700 people, aged 14 to 27, for 14 years and found that alcohol and drug use is in itself significantly associated with psychological disorders in the late 20s.
"The fact that we are able to predict this is new, startling and alarming. It used to be thought that the link only went the other way," says Dr. David W. Brook, a Mount Sinai psychiatrist and one of the authors of the study.
The results of the study appear in the November issue of The Archives of General Psychiatry.
In the study, Brook and his colleagues, including his wife and collaborator Dr. Judith Brook, did interviewed 736 people, chosen randomly from upstate New York communities, aged 14, 16, 22 and 27. The researchers used a standard diagnostic questionnaire to measure psychiatric disorders and also assessed the participants' alcohol, drug and tobacco use.
All interviews were conducted in the participants' homes by trained interviewers, and those participants who moved away were interviewed by phone or mailed questionnaires. Half the respondents were female and there were no gender differences in the result. The study is one of several conducted using data from authors' long-term "The Children in Community Study," which is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Age-appropriate psychological questions using the University of Michigan Composite International Diagnostic Interview included whether a person had diminished interest in daily activities, felt excessive fatigue on a daily basis, had unexplained weight fluctuation, was in a depressed mood or thought about dying often.
The questions are aimed at diagnosing major depressive disorders, but do not address other major psychiatric illnesses, such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.
Participants were also asked to report on their tobacco, alcohol, marijuana and other illegal drug use. Measures used for assessment for each category were rating systems grading use from none to the maximum of the following: Cigarettes, one-and-a-half packs daily; alcohol, three or more drinks a day; marijuana and other illegal drugs, daily use.
The results, Brook says, showed that the cumulative frequency of drug use, including alcohol, marijuana and other illegal drugs, during adolescence and early adulthood were associated with episodes of major depressive disorders, alcohol dependence and substance use disorders in the late 20s.
In that age group, 8.3 percent of participants qualified for a diagnosis of depressive disorder, 5.2 percent qualified as having alcohol dependence and 6.1 percent showed substance use disorders.
Increased tobacco use was associated with an increased risk for alcohol dependence and substance use disorders but not with depressive disorders among those in their late 20s.
"This should be a signal to policy makers as well as concerned parents to look around and see what's happening," Brook says.
Michael Nuccitelli, executive director of SLSHealth, an adolescent and early adult drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Brewster, N.Y., agrees.
"Oftentimes, parents minimize their childrens' alcohol and drug use. They perceive that it's social usage and don't set parameters for their children," says Nuccitelli.
"But with this study, because it's longitudinal, we can take this to our patient population and their parents and we can say this usage is a predictor of future psychopathology," he adds.
What To Do
If you suspect your child might have a drug problem, Partnership for a Drug-Free America offers some warning signs of a drug problem. Also helpful are parenting tips from the same Web site.
