Vines 1

Alex Vines

Professor Douglas

UWRT 1102-026

7 February 2017

Comorbidity in Mental Illness

Comorbidity refers to two or more illnesses occurring in the same person at the same

time. In the past, this term was used to describe a mental illness and a typical medical diagnosis,

such as anxiety disorders and migraines. However, recently the term psychiatric comorbidity

has emerged, referring to multiple mental disorders occurring in one person. Of the information

available about comorbidity, I read two articles with slightly different approaches. Neither article

posed a debate, rather they each provided general and wholesome information about this topic.

The first article was written by Mario Maj, who went into depth about what comorbidity is and

how it has evolved to be incorporated into the psychological community. The second article is

part of the National Institute of Drug Abuse. This article narrowed in on the issue and described

comorbidity in relation to a specific mental disorder, addiction.

In general, Majs article provided more information about the topic at hand. This author

described the origins of the term comorbidity and explains the evolution of research on this

topic. Originally, the term was used to describe cases in which someone is diagnosed with a

mental illness and a general medical diagnosis (Maj, 2005). An example of this would be

depression and high blood pressure. These illnesses can of course exist in people who do not

have the other, meaning that someone with high blood pressure is not necessarily depressed. This

comorbid diagnosis implies that this specific patients high blood pressure is caused by their
 Vines 2

depressive disorder and vice versa. Maj then goes on to discuss his main purpose of writing this

article, psychiatric comorbidity. This variation of comorbidity describes a patient who receives

multiple psychiatric diagnoses (Maj, 2005). Again, the use of the term comorbidity means that

the diagnoses are related to one another. The example this article uses is depression and anxiety

disorders. This is the most common example of psychiatric comorbidity. According to the article,

51 percent of Americans who were diagnosed with depression also had some form of an anxiety

disorder. The question then is, are these two disorders related to one another? Does this patient

coincidentally suffer from multiple separate disorders, or do they influence each other? This

article provides a little bit of insight as to what the answers to those questions are. However, the

majority of the article explains what comorbidity is and what the current debate is regarding it.

An example not given by the article is the presence of an eating disorder in patients with

obsessive compulsive disorder. These disorders do not always occur with one another. But there

are many tendencies of people with obsessive compulsive disorder that could cause an eating

disorder. Obsessive compulsive disorder is characterized by intrusive thoughts and rituals to

relieve the anxiety. Many obsessions are related to food, therefore if the person develops a fear

of certain foods it may cause them to avoid those foods or even food in general. Of course, some

people with eating disorders do not develop them for these reasons. In the case of comorbidity

however, the need for control could explain an eating disorder. This concept is explained in a

different example in the article involving the relationship between personality disorders and

anxiety disorders. It is rare to see a patient with a diagnosis of an anxiety (or personality)

disorder that does not fulfil the criteria for at least one more anxiety (or personality) disorder

(Maj, 2005).
 Vines 3

The second article discusses comorbidity in a specific example, drug addiction. This

article is organized in a slightly different way than the previous article. Each paragraph is titled

with a question and the paragraph is the answer to the question. The first paragraph explains that

comorbidity is characterized by related illnesses in one person. The next paragraph explains what

drug addiction is, and why it is a mental illness. Drug addiction occurs often with mental illness.

This is because people with mental illness (such as anxiety, depression, or other disorders) will

turn to drugs to self medicate (Comorbidity: Addiction and Other Mental Disorders). In addition

to this, some drugs can actually trigger a mental disorder. For example, prolonged marijuana use

has been known to cause psychosis in some people (Comorbidity: Addiction and Other Mental

Disorders). While this article provides useful information, it is not as helpful as the first article.

This article zooms in to a specific example of comorbidity, which does provide a way to

understand the topic. Drug addiction is a very common example of psychiatric comorbidity, as a

persons preexisting mental disorder could lead them to develop a drug addiction. This in depth

example is useful in understanding how psychiatric comorbidity works in general. Some cases of

psychiatric comorbidity are more complex. In the scenario of drug addiction, one disorder causes

the other. However, for comorbidity to occur the disorders must be related, not necessarily cause

one another. Maybe the same chemical imbalance that causes depression is also seen in patients

with anxiety disorders. This chemical imbalance could be the single cause for major depressive

disorder and an anxiety disorder in the same individual. This explains why some medications can

be used to treat multiple disorders. Antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake

inhibitors were created to treat depression. For a while, that was their purpose. As of late,

however, they have been used to treat things such as generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive
 Vines 4

compulsive disorder, and other related illnesses. This would imply that the reason the patient

suffers from these other disorders is because of the same chemical imbalance that causes them to

suffer from depression.

Both articles succeed in fulfilling their intention. While both articles are without a doubt

useful to me, it is more a matter of which article is more useful for my line of inquiry. The

purpose of the National Institute on Drug Abuses article was to describe how addiction is a

mental illness and why it is often seen with other mental disorders. This purpose was definitely

fulfilled, as the article explained the relation in detail. However, due to the fact that this article

only describes one scenario of psychiatric comorbidity, it is not as useful as Majs article. The

purpose of Majs article was to explain what comorbidity is, and how it has evolved to be applied

to psychology. Maj also fulfilled his purpose, explaining the topic from its origins to present day

use. This is the article that is more useful to my line of inquiry, as my purpose is to explore what

comorbidity is and if it is truly applicable to situations of mental illness.

 Vines 5

References

1. Https://www.facebook.com/NIDANIH. "Comorbidity: Addiction and Other Mental Disorders."

DrugFacts: Comorbidity: Addiction and Other Mental Disorders | National Institute on Drug

Abuse (NIDA). N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2017.

2. "'Psychiatric comorbidity': an artefact of current diagnostic systems? | The British Journal of

Psychiatry." 'Psychiatric comorbidity': an artefact of current diagnostic systems? | The British

Journal of Psychiatry. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2017.