Prevalence and associated factors of addictive behaviors in patients with depressive symptoms

Background: Addictive behavior is a chronic problem. Addictive behaviors do not only occur in the general population, but have a greater impact in people with psychiatric conditions. Objectives: The purpose of this descriptive study was to study the prevalence of addictive behaviors in patients with depressive symptoms and correlation between depression/personality and addictive behaviors in substance abuse, gambling and gaming. Methods: Data from 107 patients with depressive symptoms were collected at the Psychiatric Out-patient Department of the King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, between November 2022 - March 2023 by using the demographic and health questionnaire, the Big five personality scale, the 9 Questions Depression Rating Scale revised for Thai Central Dialect (9Q), and the alcohol, tobacco, substance, gambling, and gaming sections of the International Consortium of the Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM). Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, Chi-squared test, and binary logistic regression. Results: Of 107 subjects 28.0% had abnormal use of alcohol, 0.9% had abnormal use of cigarettes/tobacco, 0.9% and 1.9% had high and low- risk of drug use, 1.9%, 0.9%, and 3.7% had high, moderate, and low risk of gambling behavior, and 5.6% had abnormal gaming behavior. Factors significantly related to alcohol use disorder were the time of diagnosis of depression, 9Q score (P < 0.05) and having history of mania-psychotic symptoms (P < 0.01). Factors significantly related to gaming disorder were religious (P < 0.05) and income (P < 0.01). Conclusion: Nearly one-third of patients with depressive disorder had abnormal alcohol use, followed by problems with gaming and gambling. These results can be used to make a suitable treatment plan for increasing the efficiency of treating depression and addiction and as a base for further study.