A follow-up of alcoholics treated by multimodal therapy

A general hospital sponsored for the psychotherapeutic treatment of alcoholism is described. In this context a multimodal approach, emphasizing methods derived from principles of learning, is applied to training the individual in new life-style skills for the management of alcoholism. Demographic characteristics of the population served by the program are of a predominantly blue collar clientele, mostly employed (72%), married (61%), and from urban centers (95%). Attrition as a major problem in evaluating results at the follow-up stage is identified and a method of reporting follow-up results taking this factor into account is presented. This method showed that under the most stringent conditions for reporting results, 36.64% of a sample of 131 alcoholics were showing improvement at 12 months, while under the least stringent condition 84% were showing some improvement over the same period.