Objective: The combination of affective disorders and substance use - is a widespread phenomenon that requires in-depth a clinical study and analysis of the progress of the disease. In accordance with the above, the goal was set to conduct a comparative study of psychopathology, clinical picture and the features of the therapy in groups of patients with dysthymia, taking narcotic drugs of the opium group and drug addiction, and to offer the most effective methods of therapy in such states.
Methods: For this purpose, we examined 26 patients with dysthymia complicated opium addiction drugs (DCOAD) and 22 patients with opium addiction. Patients suffering from dysthymia before the use of psychoactive substances mentioned about long periods of dysthymic states and appealed mainly, to the doctors with a wide panel of complaints such as low mood, fatigue and anhedonia. The most frequent reason of the use of opioid drugs in patients with dysthymia was motivation with the desire to use substances to alleviate or eliminate the emotional discomfort.
Results: Despite the fact that most of the patients repeatedly receive unsuccessful drug treatments, doctors-narcologists usually do not question about the diagnosis of dysthymia. Reception of psychoactive substances may hide dysthymia.
Conclusion: The above results fully support that patients with DCOAD suppress the symptoms of psychoactive drugs than patients with drug addiction.