Social Anxiety Disorder and Alcohol Use Disorders

Abstract

High rates of comorbidity were found between alcohol use disorders and social anxiety disorder in epidemiologic studies. Although many studies show strong relationship between social anxiety disorder and alcohol use disorder diagnosis, inconsistency about the causal relationship still remains. High rates of comorbidity is a subject of concern since patients with both alcohol use disorder and social anxiety disorder show more severe symptoms and more functional impairment than those patients who have only one of these disorders. Thus social anxiety symptoms among those with alcohol use disorder and alcohol use disorder symptoms among those with social anxiety disorder must be evaluated carefuly. In this article studies that tried to explain the high comorbidity between social anxiety and alcohol related problems have been reviewed. Better understanding of this complex relationship would help physicians to easily recognize these individuals with dual diagnosis which would increase the efficiency of existent treatments.

Keywords

• Social Anxiety Disorder
• Alcohol Dependence
• Social Phobia