Neuropsychology and alcoholism: Influence of childhood ADHD history

Abstract

Background and aims:

A high prevalence of childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) history has been found in alcoholic patients. Patients with this history have an earlier onset and greater intensity of alcohol use, more polysubstance use and a poorer prognosis. Our objective was to study differences in neuropsychological functioning in a group of alcoholic patients according to the presence or absence of a history of childhood ADHD.

Methods:

A sample of 136 male alcoholic patients and 56 male control subjects were evaluated using the Continuous Performance Test (CPT); execution in both groups was compared. The sample of alcoholic patients was then divided into two subgroups according to the presence or absence of a history of childhood ADHD, namely the ADHD+ OH subgroup (61 patients with childhood ADHD history) and the ADHD- OH subgroup (75 patients without this history); CPT execution in these two subgroups was also compared.

Results:

The group of alcoholic patients made more omission (p=0.008) and commission (p=0.009) errors in the CPT than the control group. When comparing subgroups, ADHD+ OH patients made more omission and commission errors than ADHD- OH patients, although the differences did not reach statistical significance.

Conclusions:

Alcoholic patients perform more poorly on the CPT than control subjects. In the sample of alcoholic patients, a history of childhood ADHD was not associated to significant differences in the execution of this test.