FACTORS AFFECTING AGREEMENT BETWEEN ALCOHOL ABUSERS AND THEIR COLLATERALS REPORTS

Objective: Because of their low cost and ease of use, collaterals' rep orts are the most frequent source of independent corroboration with al cohol abusers' self-reports of drinking and related events. Although s everal reviews have shown that we can have confidence in the accuracy of alcohol abusers' reports of their drinking and in the use of collat eral reports as an independent validity criterion, neither data source is error free. This study examined factors that influence the level o f agreement between collaterals' and alcohol abusers' reports. Method: Using data from a study of natural recoveries from alcohol-related pr oblems, this study examined how agreement between 120 alcohol abusers' (79.2% male) and their collaterals' reports varied as a function of c ollateral type and of the collaterals' ratings of their confidence in the accuracy of their reports of the subjects' drinking and related be haviors. Collaterals' awareness of nonalcohol-related levels was also examined. Results: The best agreement occurred for reports from alcoho l abusers' spouses who were fairly confident about the information pro vided. For all variables, some proportion of collaterals respond to de mand characteristics of the interview by providing very specific infor mation about subjects' behavior yet admit to being unsure of this info rmation. Conclusions: Collaterals who are fairly sure of the informati on they provide are the preferred informants to corroborate alcohol ab users' reports of drinking and related behaviors. In some cases the be st collaterals are spouses who are fairly sure of the information they reported. It is also recommended that treatment outcome studies shoul d accept reports only from collaterals who are confident about the inf ormation they report.