title: Hitting rock bottom? Resource loss as a predictor of alcoholism treatment completion.
abstract: Background Efforts to better understand the phenomenon of the 'bottom', the beginning of the process of turning away from alcohol, are important for both theoretical and practical goals. The conservation of resources theory by Hobfoll may represent a suitable framework to base these attempts around. Aim The aim of the study was to examine the role of resource loss in completing alcoholism treatment on the basis of Hobfoll's conservation of resources theory. Methods The study included 86 patients undergoing inpatient alcoholism treatment. An assessment of resource loss and gain during the previous year, as well as of the decisional balance regarding the pros and cons of drinking alcohol, took place at the beginning of therapy. Results The results of hierarchical binary logistic regression confirmed that resource loss was the only significant predictor of therapy completion, after adjustment for decisional balance, demographics and basic clinical data. Additionally, gender moderated the relationship between resource gain and therapy completion: while an increase in gain was related to a decreased chance of completing therapy in men, the opposite effect was noted in women. Conclusions Resource loss has more influence than decisional balance in predicting therapy completion, which can be translated into clinically valid recommendations based on gender differences.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Health Psychology , Institute of Clinical Psychology, University of Social Sciences and Humanities , Warsaw , Poland ;
authors.forename: Ewa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gruszczyńska
authors.affiliation: b Department of Health Psychology , Institute of Psychology, University of Łódź , Poland ;
authors.forename: Małgorzata
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kaczmarek
authors.affiliation: c Department of Health Psychology , Institute of Psychology, University of Łódź , Poland.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chodkiewicz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012737:Sex Factors
keywords: Alcoholism treatment; decisional balance; gender differences; resource gain; resource loss