title: Female alcoholic inpatients: predicting program completion time and emotional state change.
abstract: A prominent theme of the literature on female alcoholism is increasing incidence simultaneous with insufficient treatment knowledge. The present study addresses this subject and presents research-based methods for predicting both amount of time for completing a primary treatment (residential) program, and extent of emotional state change between admission to and discharge from a program of varying duration (open end). The study's treatment-related results are based on 62 female program completers, and comparison of female "recovering" alcoholics and females not known to be alcoholic. Results include a five-item, empirically-derived personality scale which enabled estimation of program completion time (PCT) within 5.4 days when supplemented with demographic and other data and 10.9 days by itself. Correlates of the five-item scale suggest that it measures an aspect of personality strength that favors recovery. Another result was a formula which estimated prepost emotional state change within 2.3 points or in terms of point change categories. Cross-sectional analysis of relationships between emotional state change and "fast", medium" and "slow" program completion indicated a possible learning curve that dropped conspicuously in the "medium" section. Several tables and figure are provided for facilitating application of the findings. Implications of the study for treating the alcoholic female and further research are discussed.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay; D008875:Middle Aged; D010556:Personality Tests; D011336:Probability; D011379:Prognosis; D014930:Women / Q000523:psychology*