title: Drinking patterns and their predictive factors in CONTROL: a 12-month prospective study in a sample of alcohol-dependent patients initiating treatment.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To describe the drinking patterns and their baseline predictive factors during a 12-month period after an initial evaluation for alcohol treatment.
  
  
  METHODS
  CONTROL is a single-center, prospective, observational study evaluating consecutive alcohol-dependent patients. Using a curve clustering methodology based on a polynomial regression mixture model, we identified three clusters of patients with dominant alcohol use patterns described as mostly abstainers, mostly moderate drinkers and mostly heavy drinkers. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to identify baseline factors (socio-demographic, alcohol dependence consequences and related factors) predictive of belonging to each drinking cluster.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The sample included 143 alcohol-dependent adults (63.6% males), mean age 44.6 ± 11.8 years. The clustering method identified 47 (32.9%) mostly abstainers, 56 (39.2%) mostly moderate drinkers and 40 (28.0%) mostly heavy drinkers. Multivariate analyses indicated that mild or severe depression at baseline predicted belonging to the mostly moderate drinkers cluster during follow-up (relative risk ratio (RRR) 2.42, CI [1.02-5.73, P = 0.045] P = 0.045), while living alone (RRR 2.78, CI [1.03-7.50], P = 0.044) and reporting more alcohol-related consequences (RRR 1.03, CI [1.01-1.05], P = 0.004) predicted belonging to the mostly heavy drinkers cluster during follow-up.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In this sample, the drinking patterns of alcohol-dependent patients were predicted by baseline factors, i.e. depression, living alone or alcohol-related consequences and findings that may inform clinicians about the likely drinking patterns of their alcohol-dependent patient over the year following the initial evaluation for alcohol treatment.
authors.affiliation: Alcohol Treatment Center, Lausanne University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland. jjean-bernard.daeppen@chuv.ch
authors.forename: Jean-Bernard
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Daeppen
authors.forename: Mohamed
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Faouzi
authors.forename: Thibault
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sanglier
authors.forename: Nathalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sanchez
authors.forename: Florence
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Coste
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bertholet
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012934:Social Isolation / Q000523:psychology; D016896:Treatment Outcome