Am J Psychiatry 1996; 153:829-830
Copyright © 1996 by American Psychiatric Association
Prediction of 3-year outcome of treated alcoholics by an empirically derived multivariate typology
A Yoshino and M Kato
Komagino Hospital, Tokyo, Japan.
OBJECTIVE: This study examined whether an empirically derived multivariate
typology can predict outcome in treated alcoholics. METHOD: Two hundred
fifty-nine hospitalized male alcoholics were divided into two subtypes by
means of cluster analysis of clinical factors. Type A showed the features
of sporadic late-onset alcoholism, whereas type B manifested the
characteristics of familial early-onset alcoholism. The prospective 3-year
outcomes in the two subtypes were compared. RESULTS: The follow-up rate was
83%. The mortality and abstinence rates for type A patients (N = 98) were
15.3% and 32.7%, respectively, and for type B patients (N = 116), 23.3% and
18.1%, respectively. The age-corrected relative mortality risk and relative
abstinence rate for type A patients compared with type B patients were 0.59
and 1.60, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Familial early-onset alcoholism has a
poor outcome in Japan, and this multivariate typology has high predictive
validity.
