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Relationships between personality and demograhic variables and treatment outcome in an alcoholism treatment center

University of British Columbia

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationships of client pretreatment characteristics to treatment outcome (measured in terms of alcohol drinking behaviour 1 year after treatment) of 141 male alcoholics admitted to an alcoholism treatment center in British Columbia during the past 3 years. Data gathered prior to treatment included: (a) Demographic data: (i) Age, (ii) Level of Education, (iii) Marital Status; (b) Psychological test data: (i) Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, (ii) Edwards Personal Preference Schedule, (iii) Sixteen Personality Factors Questionnaire, (iv) Alcohol Addiction Test, (v) Shipley-Institute of Living Scale; and (c) Duration of Treatment data. The outcome classifications (successes and failures) were based on information from letters, cards, and phone calls made by former clients to their counsellors during the criterion time-period, as well as through return visits made by clients to confirm sobriety, and finally through employer and grapevine reports. The t-test for significance of differences between means was conducted on the variables, Age, Level of Education, and Duration of Treatment, while the Chi-square test of independence was conducted on the variable Marital Status. The psychological test data were put into proportional form with an ArcSin transformation, so that the unique amounts of variance contributed by each variable to the total.could be properly compared. Discriminant analysis in two steps was then performed on the psychological test data, seeking to discover those variables which contributed significantly to discrimination between the outcome groups in a predictive sense. The variables chosen by the discriminant process were then correlated among one another in order to illustrate the nature of relationships of each scale (variable) to the others. Results showed that there were no statistically significant differences for any of the demographic variables, and similarly for the 'duration of treatment' variable. However, the discriminant analysis procedures revealed four psychological variables (scales) that maximally discriminated between outcome groups, and when considered together, explained 19% of the total variance on the criterion measure, and correctly classified 68.1% of the cases. These four variables were scales 'PA' (Paranoia), 'MA' (Hypomania), and 'SI' (Social Introversion) from the MMPI, and scale 'N' (Forthright vs. Shrewd) from the 16 PF. Correlations among these scales revealed a low, with definite but small relationship between scales 'MA' and 'PA' (r =0.37, p < .001), 'PA' and 'SA' (r = 0.30, p < .001), and a slight, almost negligible relationship between scales 'MA' and 'N' (r = -0.16, p < .026). Correlations between 'MA' and 'SI', 'SI' and 'N', and 'N' and 'PA' were not significant.

Text

2010-03-13

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/21843

Counselling Psychology

University of British Columbia

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