DOES THIS TREATMENT WORK - VALIDATION OF AN OUTCOMES MODULE FOR ALCOHOL DEPENDENCE

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the outcomes of routine care administered to alcohol-dependent inpatients, The authors sought to v alidate a self-administered instrument that measures the types and ext ent of care delivered, the outcomes of that care, and casemix characte ristics that influence the outcomes of care. Seventy-eight patients wh o were beginning inpatient treatment for alcohol dependence were recru ited; 85% were followed 5 months later to examine cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships to gold standard assessments. The self-admi nistered module demonstrated excellent agreement with structured inter view assessments of diagnosis (kappa = .81), remission (kappa = .83), and change in severity of alcohol-related problems (r = .66 to .87), C asemix variables, particularly baseline severity, predicted change in alcohol consumption and functional status, The baseline module require d 20 minutes for the average patient and 5 minutes for the average cli nician to complete, with less than 2% missing data. Results indicated that the module measures key constructs with sufficient precision to a ssist clinicians and researchers in characterizing the degree to which routine inpatient care for alcohol dependence ''works'' in their pati ent population, The entire module is in the public domain and availabl e free of charge to interested users.