Comorbidity in adolescence: simultaneous declaration of depressive, eating symptoms and use of psychoactive substances in general population of 17 year old students in a big city

Aim. To determine whether the following symptoms: depressive symptoms, eating disorder symptoms among adolescents in Cracow secondary schools are associated with an increased risk of psychoactive substance use.Method. A representative sample of the population of Krakow secondary school pupils was tested. A twostage draw method identified a group of 2034 2nd form pupils of all types of secondary schools: grammarschools, technical schools and vocational schools (17-year olds). They were tested using the following screening questionnaires: Beck Depression Scale, EAT-26 eating disorders scale and author’s drugquestionnaire.Results. The prevalence of depressive symptoms among boys and girls is associated with an increased alcohol use (74.8% among depressive boys and 65.8% in the depressive group of girls), cigarette smoking(41.7% and 46.7%) and drug use (29.0% and 18.6%). All of the relationships are statistically significant in both sexes. 41.7% of depressive boys admit to smoking, versus. only 32.6% in the non-depressive group. In the girls’ group, these relationships are as follows: 46.7% versus 32.1%. The relationships are statistically significant in both sexes.The prevalence of eating disorder symptoms among boys and girls is associated with a higher alcohol use (respectively: 73.5% and 61.9%), cigarette smoking (42.1% and. 46.9%), and drug use (31.6% and 21.5%). Compared with a group of young people without eating disorder symptoms, the relationships are of statistical significance.Conclusions. Comorbidity of the following symptoms was found: depressive symptoms, eating disorder symptoms and symptoms of psychoactive substance use. The presence of depressive symptoms increases the risk of the use of psychoactive substances, especially alcohol and tobacco, to a lesser extent – drugs, both in the boys and in the girls. The presence of eating disorder symptoms increases the risk of smoking and drug use among both boys and girls.