We found in this research that depression was correlated with SUD in SC clients in accord with previous studies that have showed that depressive symptoms may be a risk factor for SUD in patients with SC (Addington and Duchak, 1997; Dixon et al., 1990). The association of depression and SUD in our sample could represent use of SUD to self-medicate depressive mood or, alternately depressogenic effects of SUD. Longitudinal studies would be necessary to better tease out the reason for this interesting association.
