Relationship Between Attention Bias and the Prognosis of Male Patients with Alcohol Dependence

Background: long term drinking in alcohol dependent patients seriously affects their physical and mental health. Abstinence treatment is very important, but there is no appropriate prediction method for the effect of abstinence in the past. Objective: In this study, we investigated word-cue attentional bias among male patients with alcohol dependence and its correlation with relapse after abstinence. Methods: Fifty male patients with alcohol dependence (ADs) and 50 male health controls (HCs) completed the Chinese version of the emotional Stroop task to assess attentional bias. The participants were evaluated at the beginning of the task using the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS). Results: The reaction times of ADs for neutral, negative, and alcohol-related words were significantly higher than those of HCs. The error index of ADs for neutral and negative words is worse than that of HCs. The period of maintained abstinence among ADs was positively correlated with the reaction time to negative words and the error index for negative and alcohol-related words. Linear regression showed the error index of alcohol-related words to be an import factor in terms of relapse. Conclusion: The number of errors in alcohol-related attentional bias cue words may be a predictor of the effect of abstinence.