Objective: To find differential personality traits, through the TCI questionnaire, between alcoholic patients who abuse benzodiazepines (BZD) and those who do not, and between patients affected by personality disorders (PD) and those not affected. These traits can then be used as criteria of good prognosis and as psychotherapeutic targets.
Methods: Cross-sectional study of 218 alcoholic inpatients, comparing TCI scores between BZD abusers and non-abusers, and between PD-affected patients and non-PD-affected patients.
Results: BZD-abusing patients score higher in Harm Avoidance and lower in Self-Directedness than non-abusers. Patients with PD score higher in Novelty-Seeking and lower in Cooperativeness than patients without PD.
Conclusions: BZD-abusing patients are less mature and self-sufficient, more impressionable, insecure, and have a high tendency to avoid risk. Patients with PD are more impulsive and less cooperative. The characteristics found with TCI are coherent with the difficulties of these patients during treatment and with clinical impressions. These problematic areas should become therapeutic targets to be modified through treatment. For all of these reasons the TCI emerges as a useful instrument for understanding, assessing and identifying alcoholic patients and their treatment needs.