Capturing the moment: innovative approaches to daily alcohol assessment.
This article is a summary of a symposium presented at the 2005 Research Society on Alcoholism annual conference organized by Dan J. Neal and chaired by William R. Corbin. Event-level data, wherein each "event" (e.g., day) is captured as its own data point, capture the complex patterns of drinking and other high-risk behaviors in ways that the typical aggregate approach cannot. Because of their richness, methodologies that incorporate event-level data are becoming more common in alcohol research. At least 3 distinct forms of event-level data can be gathered: retrospective data (those collected on a single occasion, using memory aids to help each participant reconstruct all drinking events over a specific period of time), daily monitoring data (reporting on all events for that day), and momentary assessment (those recorded immediately following a drinking event or in response to a prompt from researchers). The goal of this symposium was to address many issues associated with event-level methodology, as well as demonstrate projects that are currently implementing such innovative data collection. The 4 presentations included in this symposium were "Realizing the Promise and Avoiding the Pitfalls of Retrospective Daily Estimation Assessments of Alcohol Use" by Frances K. Del Boca; "Using Interactive Voice Response Technology to Assess the Alcohol-Victimization Link" by Kathleen Parks, Linda King, and Ann Pardi; "Methodological Issues in Using Personal Data Assistants to Self-monitor Alcohol Consumption" by R. Lorraine Collins, Mark Muraven, and Charlene Vetter; and "Collecting Event-level Data Using the World Wide Web" by Dan J. Neal and Kim Fromme.
Neal
Dan J
DJ
Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712-0187, USA. neal@psy.utexas.edu
Fromme
Kim
K
Boca
Frances K
FK
Parks
Kathleen A
KA
King
Linda P
LP
Pardi
Ann M
AM
Collins
R Lorraine
RL
Muraven
Mark
M
Vetter
Charlene
C
Corbin
William R
WR
D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000523:psychology*; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation; D019548:Crime Victims / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003625:Data Collection / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008499:Medical Records; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome