Opium dependence is a worldwide problem, that has developed beyond the health - care border line.

There are a lot of foreign studies about psychiatric disorders in the opium dependent families. But those are a few in our culture and geographic area.

The aim of this study is comparing of psychiatric disorders between opium dependent and non dependent families in Arak-Iran in 2010.

This is a case - control study that carried on 230 families of 87 opium dependent subjects attending to the withdrawal clinics as case group and 420 families of 174 opium nondependents as control group who attended to the blood transfusion center in Arak -Iran by using SCL-90 Questionnaire. Then analyzed data by using Spss 15 in order for comparing different psychiatric disorders in them.

Depression, Generalized anxiety disorder, hostility and paranoia were significantly different in three pathological types such as borderline, disorder and combined disorders (Pvalue < 0.05) in opium dependent and non-dependent families, but there were not Significantly different between other disorders such as somatization, Obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal disturbance, phobia and psychotic disorder in that questionnaires SCL90-R were measured (P value > 0.05). Psychiatric disorders as overall were significantly differences in opium dependent and non-dependent families (p < 0.05).

According to our finding a number of psychiatric disorders are more common in opium dependent families.Therefore further studies in this area and families with other substance dependence subjects were suggested.