Further Evidence of a Psychopathology Specific to Heroin Use Disorder. Relationships between Psychopathological Dimensions and Addictive Behaviours

Background: addictive behaviours are the behavioural expression of addiction, a chronic relapsing brain disease that is expressed through symptoms related to the onset of tolerance and dependence phenomena, social maladjustment, somatic complications and symptoms of psychopathology related to the presence or absence of a Dual Diagnosis. Recent studies suggest that specific psychopathological dimensions appear to be the psychopathological expression of Substance Use Disorders beyond the presence or absence of a Dual Diagnosis. High-level correlation between psychopathological dimensions and addictive behaviours would be further evidence of the existence of a psychopathology specific to Substance Use Disorder. Methods: 207 patients, with a diagnosis of heroin dependence according to DSM-IV-R and DSM-5 criteria, were included in the study. Of these, 163 (78.7%) patients were males and 44 (21.3%) females. At the time of the evaluation, average age was 35.20 ± 10.7 years (minimum 16, maximum 65). For data collection, we used three questionnaires: DAH-Q for demographic and drug addiction history; SCL-90 for psychopathological symptomatology; and CRAV-HERO for addictive behaviour. Correlations between the psychopathological dimensions of SCL-90 and CRAV-HERO were studied, at the multivariate level, by means of canonical correlation analysis to identify and measure the associations that may connect the two separate sets of variables. Results: Canonical correlation analysis showed only a variate linking psychopathology and addictive behaviour (Statistics: Wilks L=0.72; F=2.70 p <0.001). The psychopathological set was saturated negatively by the violence-suicide, somatic symptoms and panic anxiety dimensions and positively (at a very low level) by the sensitivity-psychoticism dimension. The addictive behavioural set was saturated negatively by time items, exchange items, risk items and cue-induced/environmental stimuli items related to relief-obsessive craving and positively (at a very low level) by cue-induced/environmental stimuli items related to reward craving. Conclusions: The high-level correlation between psychopathological dimensions and addictive behaviour stands as further evidence, at least in Heroin Use Disorder patients, of the existence of a psychopathology that is specific to addiction. © 2017, Pacini Editore S.p.A. All rights reserved.