Vol 9, No 4
- Addictive Substances
Past issues
Contributors
How to publish
Contributions and comments
Home
Alert
To print this page in good conditions, please select the "Landscape" mode of your printer.
|
Select and print
|
Epidemiology, pathogenesis, and long-term
course of chronic alcohol dependence
lcoholism is a chronic and relapsing disorder
that imposes enormous costs on society, is one of the
leading causes of death in industrialized countries, and is
among the strongest cost drivers with respect to service
use.
1-5
Thus, the development of successful treatment
approaches and their intensive analysis is of major impor-
tance for public health.Alcohol dependence is one of the
most frequent psychiatric disorders, with a 12-month
prevalence of at least 3%, a lifetime prevalence of 8% to
14%, and a male:female ratio of 2-5:1.
6-11
Both, the course
and the treatment of alcoholism are complicated by a
high rate of comorbid psychiatric disorders, most impor-
tantly personality disorders (approximately 30% to
60%), anxiety (20% to 30%), and mood disorders
(20%).
9,12-15
The alcohol-associated burden of disease is
C l i n i c a l r e s e a r c h
A
Copyright © 2007 LLS SAS. All rights reserved
www.dialogues-cns.org
Outpatient Long-term Intensive Therapy for
Alcoholics (OLITA): a successful
biopsychosocial approach to the
treatment of alcoholism
Henning Krampe, PhD; Sabina Stawicki, PhD; Margret R. Hoehe, MD, PhD;
Hannelore Ehrenreich, MD, DVM
Keywords:
alcohol; alcoholism therapy; addiction; chronic psychiatric disease;
integrated long-term treatment; therapeutic alliance; therapy process and out-
come
Author affiliations:
Division of Clinical Neuroscience, Max-Planck-Institute
of Experimental Medicine, Goettingen, Germany (Henning Krampe, Sabina
Stawicki, Hannelore Ehrenreich); Genetic Variation Program, Max-Planck-
Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany (Margret R. Hoehe)
Address for correspondence:
Hannelore Ehrenreich, MD, DVM, Max-Planck-
Institute of Experimental Medicine, Division of Clinical Neuroscience, Hermann-
Rein-Str.3, 37075 Goettingen, Germany
(e-mail: ehrenreich@em.mpg.de)
Alcohol dependence is a frequent, chronic, relapsing, and
incurable disease with enormous societal costs. Thus, alco-
holism therapy and research into its outcome are of major
importance for public health. The present article will: (i)
give a brief overview of the epidemiology, pathogenesis,
and treatment outcomes of alcohol dependence; (ii) intro-
duce the basic principles of outpatient long-term therapy
of alcohol-dependent patients; and (iii) discuss in detail
process-outcome research on Outpatient Long-term
Intensive Therapy for Alcoholics (OLITA). This successful
biopsychosocial approach to the treatment of alcoholism
shows a 9-year abstinence rate of over 50%, a re-employ-
ment rate of 60%, and a dramatic recovery from comor-
bid depression, anxiety disorders, and physical sequelae.
The outcome data are empirically based on treatment
processes that have proven high predictive validity and
give concrete information about where to focus the ther-
apeutic efforts. Thus, process-outcome research on OLITA
can serve for the development of new therapeutic guide-
lines on adapting individual relapse prevention strategies.
© 2007, LLS SAS
Dialogues Clin Neurosci
. 2007;9:399-412.