title: Inpatient male alcoholics: predicting program completion time in days and characteristics of fast and slow completers.
abstract: This study relates the origin and validation of an hypothesis-based scale that predicted program completion time (PCT) of inpatient male alcoholics within 8.6 days. It comprises 10 statements from an emotional state and demographic questionnaire's 46 items. The new scale is the ratio of interpersonal relations (IR) items to "recovery facilitating" (RF) items: IR/RF. Cross-validation on two groups of 28 male alcoholic completers yielded validities from 0.49 to 0.52. Combining the scale with other data selected by computer from the same questionnaire raised validity to 0.73 (adjusted) and reduced prediction error 19.8% to 6.9 days. The scale's rationale involves relationship dynamics between "internal strength" (RF) and "external behavior" (IR). It is consistent with: pre/post changes in IR/RF; RF; IR; data and interpretations from Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS) and California Psychological Inventory (CPI) scores; comparisons of contrasting groups. Profiles of high and low scale score groups show both major differences and similarities. Treatment personnel reactions to high score profile content suggest the scale's potential value for planning patient improvement and for reducing non-completer incidence. The nature of the scale's pre/post changes indicates an additional utility: assessing treatment effectiveness.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D004644:Emotions; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010361:Patients / Q000523:psychology*; D010551:Personality; D010556:Personality Tests; D013997:Time Factors