Prevalence of dual diagnosis among clinic attending patients in a de-addiction centre of a tertiary care hospital.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Indian research on dual diagnosis is mostly on prevalence of co-morbidity in a particular type of substance use disorder or psychiatric disorder. They were not on overall prevalence of dual diagnosis in a clinical sample. The study aims to assess prevalence of dual diagnosis among first time visitors to a tertiary care deaddiction centre.

METHODOLOGY: The study participants were recruited using computer-generated random number table from 10th Apr 2013 to 28 June 2013 from a deaddiction centre in North India. Psychiatric diagnosis was done by qualified psychiatrist and confirmed by Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.).

RESULTS: One seventy nine participants were recruited during the study period. The prevalence of dual diagnosis was 58 (32.4%). Affective disorder group 22 (12.3%) is the most common group followed by anxiety disorders group 20 (11.2%) and psychotic disorder group 9 (5.0%). Duration of use and dependence (in months) of alcohol, opioids, and nicotine was shorter and of cannabis and benzodiazepines was longer in dual diagnosis group compared to non dual diagnosis group.

CONCLUSIONS: This study screened the largest number of substance use disorders patients visiting a tertiary care centre in India using a sound methodology. The study reported that nearly one third of substance use disorder patients are cases of dual diagnosis. The prevalence reported in our study is lower than reported in some western hospital based and community based studies.