Taken together, the results of the current study have important public health implications. As suggested in clinical samples comorbidity is the norm rather than the exception. Therefore, the research base for understanding and treating comorbid SUD and mood and anxiety disorders needs to be broadened to include heterogeneous and complex combinations of problems (Baillie et al., 2010). Understanding the nature of specific comorbid relationships may provide a rationale for sequential, parallel or integrated treatment protocols (Oei et al., 1997). Further, relative to their American counterparts the greater tendency toward substance use disorders among Koreans with mood or anxiety disorders (than vice versa) may present special challenges for public health professionals and clinicians. The social stress accompanying rapid modernization and industrialization that occurred over the past decade in Korea might exert its impacts on the comobidity pattern examined here. The distinctly different comorbid patterns in Korea versus Western countries may also underscore the need to target the processes that underlie or maintain such comorbidity. Additionally, one may expand the current study to examine other Asian countries to determine whether the comorbidity pattern similar to Korea is pervasive in other parts of Asia.
