Browsing by Author "Lindgren, Anette"

Objective: Social anxiety and alcohol use disorders frequently occur together. In addition, these disorders are known to be comorbid with other anxiety disorders and somatic diseases. Recent studies have found conflicting results concerning the association. Aim for this study was to examine the association between social anxiety and alcohol use disorder and its uniqueness as well as causality. Better understanding of the association helps developing more focused interventions. Methods: The data in this study was acquired from freely available National Comorbidity Survey data. It is originally collected in The United States 1990-1992 and 2001-2002. It consists of 5001 non-institutionalized adults aged 15-54. Logistic regression analyses were performed to examine the associations between social anxiety and alcohol use disorder. Uniqueness and causality were examined by adjusting time, age and other anxiety disorders in logistic regression analysis. Results: Social anxiety had a unique association with alcohol use disorders and the association was found to be causal. Other anxiety disorders were not associated with alcohol use disorders. Results consisted while other anxiety disorders and age were adjusted. When data was split to two different age groups, associations were only found in younger sample. Conclusion: Results show that there are a causal and unique association between social anxiety and alcohol use disorders. Prevention of social anxiety may have an additional effect on preventing later alcohol use disorders in younger population.