Psychosis in alcohol addicts

Abstract

Psychosis is the commonly reported psychiatric condition in the psychiatry department. With the social and some traditional ways of  treating this psychosis is by consuming alcohol. But many of them are not aware that alcohol itself can take them into psychotic  conditions. To make the differentiation between the real psychosis patient and those who are victim of psychosis by consuming  alcohol in heavy quantity. The study is to know the possibility of alcohol induced psychosis reporting without really knowing the fact  that alcohol can also induce psychosis. This was a clinic-based cross-sectional descriptive study. The study consisted of 1000 alcohol dependent patients. The main aim of the study was to find out the prevalence of alcohol-induced psychosis in society among the  alcohol users. The mean age of the sample was 30.74 years and the majority of the patients were below 40 years. The majority of the  patients were males (92%), married (88%), Hindus (92%). The majority were from below class II socioeconomic class as per the  classification by Prasad. About 68% of patients initiated the consumption of alcohol between the age group of 30-40 years. About  52% were consuming alcohol for a period between 10-20 years. Female alcoholics had later age initiation of alcohol consumption,  long duration of alcohol consumption and longer years consumption prior to becoming alcohol dependent. Alcohol-induced psychosis  was present in 37% of patients. The age at initiation of alcohol consumption, the duration of consumption, and the duration of  consumption prior to becoming dependent did not have any bearing on the onset of alcohol-induced psychosis.