Premature termination of treatment among alcoholics: predicting outpatient clinic dropouts

Authors predicted that adult alcoholics with relatively higher scores on obsessive-compulsive drinking subscale of Alcohol Use Inventory (AUI-4) and psychasthenia scale of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-7) would be better candidates for successful completion of traditional outpatient treatment. Both tests were administered to 89 successively admitted outpatients who were tracked through treatment and later classified as dropouts (premature unilateral termination of treatment, N = 57), mutuals (patient-therapist agreement on appropriate termination, N = 22), or open cases (patients still in treatment at end of 6 months, N = 10). AUI-4, but not MMPI-7, successfully identified dropouts, mutuals, and open cases, and significantly differentiated between dropouts and all other patients. AUI-4 and MMPI-7 were significantly and positively correlated, and AUI-4, but not MMPI-7, was significantly and positively related to number of therapy sessions.