LEVELS AND PATTERNS OF ALCOHOL-CONSUMPTION USING TIMELINE FOLLOW-BACK, DAILY DIARIES AND REAL-TIME ELECTRONIC INTERVIEWS

Objective: This study was designed to compare the Timeline Follow-Back (TLFB) to daily and real-time assessments of drinking. Our purpose wa s to evaluate overall correspondence and day-to-day agreement between these two methods among both problem and moderate drinkers. Method: In Study 1, problem drinkers (n = 20) reported their alcohol consumption daily during 28 days of brief treatment. In Study 2, moderate drinker s (n = 48), recruited from the community, used a palm-top computer to record their drinking for 30 days. In both studies participants comple ted the TLFB covering the recording period. Results: Participants in S tudy 1 reported fewer drinking days, fewer drinks per drinking day and fewer total drinks per day on the TLFB, and those in Study 2 reported fewer drinks per drinking day, fewer ounces per drinking day, fewer t otal drinks per day and fewer total ounces per day. The magnitude of t he difference, however, was modest. There was considerable between-per son variation in day-to-day correspondence of TLFB and the daily and r eal-time reports. Neither person characteristics (gender, education an d income) nor the distributional characteristics of drinking (includin g average consumption, variation) predicted concordance between TLFB a nd real-time reports. Conclusions: The Timeline Follow-Back method cap tured overall levels of drinking quite well compared to a 28-day daily diary and a 30-day electronic interview. Vast individual differences in day-to-day correspondence suggest that the TLFB may be less useful for detecting patterns of consumption.