A Study to find the Association Between Severity of Alcohol Dependence in Male Patients with Caregiver Burden in Their Spouses

Introduction: Alcoholism causes harm to the well-being and health of the person and also the family. Spouses are mostly affected because of the intimate nature of the relationship. Methodology: Study included 150 wives of alcohol dependence syndrome patients. Severity of alcohol dependence was calculated using severity of alcohol dependence questionnaire (SADQ). To assess the care giver burden, we used Shailapai and Kapoor Scale (SKS). Data was analyzed using statistical software SPSS ver. 21. Results: As per Severity (SADQ) score, severe addiction was seen in 32.7%, mild to moderate addiction was seen in 34% and 33.3% respectively. Caregiver burden was moderate in 34% while it was severe in over half (57.3%) of the cases. A significant association was seen between presence of psychiatric co-morbidity and severity of alcoholism (p<0.05) with prevalence of psychiatric morbidity among mild, moderate and severe alcoholism as 33.3%, 50% and 100% respectively; and between presence of caregiver burden and severity of alcoholism (p<0.05) with prevalence of severe caregiver burden among mild, moderate and severe alcoholism cases was 25.5%, 48% and 100% respectively. A significant correlation was seen between (SADQ) and caregiver burden (r- value: 0.54; p<0.01) while inverse correlation was seen with couple satisfaction (r –value: -0.77; p<0.01). Conclusion: The findings of the present study indicates that mental health and marital satisfaction of spouses is considerably poor and warrant attention. The high rates of psychological distress and caregiver burden among such spouses need to be addressed either as part of alcohol treatment programs or independently.