• Stefanos Bellos, Petros Skapinakis, Dheeraj Rai, Pedro Zitko, Ricardo Araya, Glyn Lewis, Christos Lionis, and Venetsanos Mavreas.
• Department of Psychiatry, University of Ioannina School of Medicine, Ioannina 45110, Greece. Electronic address: bellos.stefanos@gmail.com.
• Drug Alcohol Depend. 2013 Dec 15;133(3):825-31.

BackgroundAlcohol consumption is associated with several complications of both physical and mental health. Light or moderate alcohol consumption may have beneficial effects on physical or mental health but this effect is still controversial and research in the mental health field is relatively scarce. Our aim was to investigate the association between varying levels of alcohol consumption and the common mental disorders of depression and anxiety in a large international primary care sample.MethodsThe sample consisted of 5438 primary care attenders from 14 countries who participated in the WHO Collaborative Study of Psychological Problems in General Health Care. Alcohol use was assessed using Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and the mental disorders were assessed with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI).ResultsLight to moderate alcohol consumption was associated with a lower prevalence of depression and generalized anxiety disorder compared to abstinence while excessive alcohol consumption was associated with a higher prevalence of depression. This non-linear association was not substantially affected after adjustment for a range of possible confounding variables, including the presence of chronic disease and the current physical status of participants and was evident in different drinking cultures.ConclusionThe study confirms that excessive drinking is associated with an increased prevalence of depression, but also raises the possibility that light/moderate drinking may be associated with a reduced prevalence of both depression and anxiety. Any causal interpretation of this association is difficult in the context of this cross-sectional study and further longitudinal studies are needed.Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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