The purpose of this project is to examine the major psychopathologic pathways to alcoholism. To achieve this goal, the following questions will be addressed. (1) What is the relationship between alcoholism and psychiatric disorders (namely, anxiety disorders, affective disorders and behavior disorders)? (2) How do psychiatric disorders influence the transitions between different stages of alcoholism? (3) Does the comorbidity between psychiatric disorders and alcoholism differ for females and males at different developmental stages? Several existing data sets using diverse study designs and samples will be used to identify the magnitude of comorbidity between specific disorders and each of the stages of alcoholism ranging from exposure to use to problematic use to dependence. Retrospective and prospective data will be used simultaneously to examine the links between psychopathology and each of the stages of the development of alcohol disorders, as well as the rate of transition between stages. Multiple statistical approaches for studying associations, transitions and subtypes including Cox models, tree-based methods and latent class approaches will be employed. Results from different studies will be synthesized to either replicate patterns of comorbidity or to generate hypotheses regarding inconsistencies across studies, using techniques of metaanalysis such as combining likelihoods from different studies. The investigators state that the aggregation of data from studies using multiple designs, samples and methods will provide stronger evidence of the consistency and stability of the link between psychiatric disorders and the stages of development of alcoholism than could be derived from a single study. They further state that identifying these pathways will ultimately assist in the development of an empirical basis for the primary prevention of secondary alcoholism.
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