Comparaison des dimensions de personnalité dans la dépendance à l’alcool et les addictions sans substance

Approaches in the assessment of personality were interested in addictive behaviours. For Cloninger, in 1987 [4], temperament characteristics considered to be hereditary and underlain by clinical, neurobiological and genetics hypothesis were: novelty seeking (NS), harm avoidance (HA), reward dependence (RD) and rersistence (P) and dimensions of character were self-directedness (SD), cooperativeness (C) and self-transcendence (ST). A new questionnaire evolved from the initial Cloninger's questionnaire: the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). This new questionnaire includes 226 items. The authors used this questionnaire on 79 patients in the Pr. Adès Psychiatry Unit of the University Hospital Center (CHU) Louis-Mourier. Of these patients, 48 consulted for alcohol's problems and 31 for behavioural addictions (pathological gambling, compulsive buying…). Analysis of the results showed that in general anxiety rating is higher for patients suffering from a behavioural addiction than for patients with an alcoholic addiction. This study follows the theme of personal vulnerability, due to personality dimensions, but also due to the context and to the product or behaviour. The results suggest that, regardless of product or behaviour, personality dimensions appear from patient profiles (NS; HA and C) with higher rates in the case of addictive behaviour, but usually profiles are more alike than different. It seems that patients prefer to strive for behaviour-related excitement, than for an excitement due to a product easy to obtain that would have less interpersonal stakes than gambling or compulsive buying. The authors analysed the common factors between alcohol dependences and other behavioural addictions in terms of personality dimensions.