2011). In addition, U.S. data on women aged 50 and older showed higher risks of both panic disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in women who engaged in any binge drinking, compared with non�Cbinge drinkers (Chou et al. 2011). Unlike the preceding studies, which linked drinking patterns to increased risks of general psychiatric comorbidity, most studies of women��s alcohol use and unfortunately psychiatric disorders have focused on comorbidity of specific disorders with AUDs and risky drinking patterns. These more specific linkages are discussed in the sections that follow. Depression Research clearly has established that depressive disorders and symptoms are more likely among people with AUDs (e.g., Grant et al. 2004), but studies have not always examined this connection specifically among women.

However, a large U.S. twin study found that diagnoses of major depression and alcohol dependence were correlated among women (Prescott et al. 2000), and data from the large National Epidemiologic Study on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) showed that women with major depressive disorder were more likely to report multiple criteria for alcohol abuse and dependence (Lynskey and Agrawal 2008). Research also has repeatedly found associations of women��s depression with binge drinking. For example, in a major Canadian survey, women��s binge drinking (five or more, or eight or more, drinks per day) was associated with measures of recent and longer-term depression (Graham et al. 2007), and data from the large U.S.

Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System surveys showed that lifetime depression was significantly more likely in women who engaged in binge drinking (four or more drinks in a day) (Strine et al. 2008). PTSD AUDs often have been associated with symptoms or diagnoses of PTSD. For example, in young adults followed up from the U.S. National Survey of Adolescents, women with PTSD in the past 6 months were more than twice as likely as other women to meet criteria for a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition diagnosis of alcohol abuse (Danielson et al. 2009). Among women from the large Missouri Adolescent Female Twin Study, PTSD was associated with a greater likelihood of AUDs (Sartor et al. 2010). In surveys of three Mexican cities, lifetime PTSD was more prevalent in women who misused alcohol (with at least one indicator of alcohol abuse or dependence) (Slone et al.

2006). In addition, in the large California Women��s Health Survey, having symptoms of PTSD doubled the odds that women engaged in binge drinking (Timko et al. 2008). However, most of these studies have not found any effects of PTSD beyond the effects of the traumatic experiences that led to PTSD, a pattern also reported in other recent studies of women who have experienced Dacomitinib sexual assaults (Najdowski and Ullman 2009; Testa et al. 2007).