Prospective memory and future event simulation in individuals with alcohol dependence
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Published on: January 5, 2018
Alison Griffiths1, Robert Hill, Celia Morgan
1Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, UCL, London, UK.
Aim:
To assess objectively prospective memory (PM) performance of individuals with alcohol dependence and determine whether the use of an imagery technique at the point of encoding can enhance their performance.
Design:
An independent group design was used to compare individuals with alcohol dependence with social drinkers.
Setting:
One UK residential substance misuse service.
Participants:
Twenty-four abstinent 'individuals with alcohol dependence' and 24 social drinkers matched on age, gender and years of education.
Measurements:
The virtual week (VW); story recall; a category fluency task; trail-making test (TMT); a single digit cancellation task (SDCT); spot-the-word; State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI); Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II); and the Severity of Alcohol Dependence Questionnaire (SAD-Q) FINDINGS: Event-based PM task performance of individuals with alcohol dependence was associated strongly with indices of alcohol usage (P < 0.001), and was impaired significantly compared to that of social drinkers (P < 0.001). Imagining improved social drinkers' time-based PM but not that of individuals with alcohol dependence.
Conclusions:
Individuals with alcohol dependence may experience prospective memory deficits which may be due to difficulties with effective strategy application.
