Treatment of Alcoholic Relatives Research Study

The proposed study will examine the efficacy of family involvement in the treatment program of their alcoholic relatives. Specifically, measures of treatment success will be compared for two groups of alcoholic inpatients at Bronx Veterans Medical Center, a group of alcoholic inpatients with family members involved in the treatment program and a group of alcoholic inpatients with no family members involved in the treatment program.

Both inpatient alcoholic groups will have no history of organic brain disorder or major affective disorder; further, they will be matched on age, gender, educational level, ethnicity, marital status, and the number of years they have had a serious drinking problem (all alcoholics will have had a drinking problem for no less than and no more than two years).

Measures of treatment success will consist of:

(1) alcoholics' depression levels; (2) alcoholics' anxiety levels; (3) alcoholics' attitudes toward alcohol; (4) alcoholics' attitudes toward future sobriety; (5) number of alcoholics who remain in the program until termination; and (6) number of days sober during the 60 days following termination of the program.

The research will be conducted using a two-group, pretest-posttest design. The experimental group will consist of alcoholic inpatients who have family members involved in the treatment program provided to them at Bronx Veterans Medical Cen

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of them as research participants. Further, subjects will be verbally assured that all of the data they contribute to the study will be kept strictly confidential and anonymous. Selection of Measurement Methods This study's dependent measures all measure some element of treatment success. They consist of measures of anxiety, depression, attitudes toward alcohol and future sobriety, the number of alcoholics remaining in the treatment program until its termination and the number of days sober following termination of treatment. Each of these measures is described and discussed below. Measure of anxiety. Subjects' anxiety levels will be measured using the A-State anxiety scale of the State Trait Anxiety Inventory. The A-State scale of the STAI consists of 20 items measured along a four point Likert-type scale considered to be an equal-interval scale. According to Kaplan and Saccuzzo (1982), there is good evidence for the reliability of the STAI with test-retest reliabilities varying from .16 to .54 for the A-State scale; it should be noted here that these low reliability coefficients do indicate good reliability because it is low coefficients that would be expected for a measure of temporary response. Regarding validity o

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