ABSTRACT
Introduction: Alcohol dependence syndrome is a very common condition affecting the general population. Alcohol abuse can result in novelty seeking and risk taking behaviour resulting in violence and road traffic accidents. Long duration abuse can cause several psychiatric disorders like anxiety, depression, and family disharmony. These problems are much more common in countries like India. In this single stage cross-sectional case control Methodology and Results: study, the degree of psychological well-being was grossly affected in spouses of patients with alcohol dependence in comparison to spouses of normal subjects. The overall mean (SD) of desirable coping strategies was 33.08 (7.7) in the study group and 68.0 (2.0) in the control group. The overall mean (SD) of undesirable coping strategies was 28.8 (4.2) in the study group and 5.2 (1.6) in the control group. In the study group, higher means were obtained by greater use of undesirable coping strategies in comparison to that in control group. Further analysis into the domains showed significant difference (P-value 0.001) between the study and control groups in all domains except substance use. The spouses of the Conclusion: study group showed higher usage of maladaptive coping strategies to handle their stress