Help-seeking timeline followback for problem drinkers: Preliminary comparison with agency records of treatment contacts

Objective: A pilot study assessed the utility of the Timeline Followback (T LFB) method to collect information on help seeking. Method: Using the TLFB method, 34 clients (26 men) who had attended at leas t one session of an outpatient alcohol treatment program reported on treatm ent contacts. including any supplemental services (e.g., psychiatric care). TLFB reports of help seeking at that agency were compared with agency reco rds of treatment contacts. Results: Clients reported on their help-seeking behavior for a period of ap proximately 8 months after they had completed an initial assessment for the outpatient treatment With regard to the number of outpatient sessions they attended intraclass correlations and equivalence testing showed that the T LFB data were comparable to the agency records of treatment contacts. Analy sis of week-to-week correspondence of the presence or absence of help-seeki ng episodes showed good agreement between TLFB and the agency records for m ost participants, although there was substantial variation. Degree of corre spondence was not associated with the length of the recall period or indivi dual differences (e.g., drinking pattern). Older participants, however, ten ded to have lower week-to-week concordance than did younger participants. Conclusions: These data provide preliminary support for the utility of a he lp-seeking TLFB instrument to assess addiction- and mental health-related c ontacts. This instrument may be especially useful in research in which coll ecting temporal patterns of help seeking is of interest (e.g., in studies e xamining factors influencing the delay in help seeking alter relapse).