Consistency of alcohol self-report measures in a male young offender population

The consistency among a number of measures of self-report of alcohol consumption in imprisoned male young offenders was studied by asking 56 young offenders to report, based on a 'typical week', how many days they had consumed alcohol, how many days they were drunk and how much alcohol they had consumed. They were asked to rate their confidence in the accuracy of their self-report and to complete the short EPQ-R, which contains a Lie Scale. Results show that self-report in this population is reliable over time and that different indices of alcohol consumption correlate significantly with each other. Young offenders report a moderate degree of confidence in their accuracy of self-report and the mean EPQ-R Lie Scale score is within 1 standard deviation of the norm for a comparable sample.