Personality characteristics related to treatment decisions among inpatient alcoholics: a non-relationship

A battery of standard personality and experimental research scales was administered to 110 male alcoholic inpatients. No differences were found on the 30 scale scores derived from the tests among three groups with differential treatment dispositions: (1) those who discontinued treatment after a 2-week evaluation period; (2) those who chose to remain for a 60-day treatment program, but discontinued prior to completion; and (3) those who chose and did complete the 60-day program. It was suggested that attrition from an inpatient alcoholism program might be predicted better by a multivariate approach that used demographic, life history, psychosocial and personality variables as predictors.