Measures Associated with Outcome on One Year Follow‐up of Male Alcoholics

Summary Fifty‐two alcoholics were studied at a time when they were receiving treatment either as hospital in‐patients or as residents in a rehabilitation facility. Information was obtained regarding past and present social level and functioning and drinking history. The subjects also completed a motivation checklist and an affect checklist. A particular focus of the investigation was to investigate the proposition that anomy would be associated with poor prognosis. A year later 38 subjects were successfully followed up; 13 were abstinent and 25 had resumed drinking. Of many life history variables only level of education and residential stability were found to be significantly associated with outcome. Measures of anomy derived from principal component analysis of the motivation checklist likewise were not significantly associated with outcome. However, a discriminant function, composed of variables from the motivation and affect checklists, completely separated the two outcome groups. When this function was applied to the subjects who were not followed up most were predicted to have returned to drinking. While the specific discriminant function derived here might not apply to other populations, it is proposed that the results here demonstrate that attitudinal measures are better predictors of outcome than are life history variables. Suggestions are made regarding further research in this area.