No abstract

The relationship between the therapeutic alliance and treatment participation and drinking outcomes during and after treatment was evaluated among alcoholic outpatient and aftercare clients. In the outpatient sample, ratings of the working alliance, whether provided by the client or therapist, were significant predictors of treatment participation and drinking behavior during the treatment and 12month posttreatment periods, after a variety of other sources of variance were controlled. Ratings of the alliance by the aftercare clients did not predict treatment participation or drinking outcomes.

Substantial numbers of mental health clients do not return following their initial therapy visits or drop out of treatment prematurely. Two general classes of strategies designed to reduce premature attrition and enhance treatment participation are reviewed. Research on psychotherapy preparatory techniques (role induction, vicarious therapy pretraining, and experiential pretraining) indicates that these educational techniques are effective in reducing early treatment attrition and may be especially effective with populations at high risk for dropout (e.g., lower socioeconomic groups, chronically mentally ill clients, and institutionalized juvenile delinquents). Motivational interviewing, a technique originally developed for clients with alcohol problems, is designed to reduce client ambivalence toward therapy and change and enhance commitment to and motivation for treatment. Research in the alcohol field suggests that a session of pretreatment motivational interviewing enhances treatment outcome. Both motivational interviewing and psychotherapy preparatory techniques are relatively brief and easy to incorporate into existing mental health care.

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) participation often is of interest in alcoholism treatment research, but few measures of this variable have been developed with known psychometric properties. It is common for measures of AA participation to blur the important distinction between frequency of AA attendance and AA involvement. This study provides psychometric findings for the Alcoholics Anonymous Involvement (AAI) scale, a 13-item self-report inventory that measures lifetime and recent attendance and involvement in AA. Normative data are provided based on a national sample of alcoholic participants in treatment (N = 1,625), and AAI response stability is reported by using a test-retest sample (N = 76). Findings indicate that the AAI can serve as a reliable and useful instrument for assessing AA attendance and involvement.

as a factor in behavior change research requires a reliable measure of religious behavior. Such a measure may be particularly helpful in research on substance misuse given the negative association between religiosity and substance use and the role of religiosity and spirituality often reported in the process of recovery from substance use disorders. In this regard, this article describes the development and evaluation of the Religious Background and Behavior (RBB) questionnaire as a brief measure of religious practices. The results suggest the RBB is made up of two factors, labeled God Consciousness and Formal Practices, and that the RBB possesses excellent test-retest reliability and satisfactory internal consistency. It is concluded that the RBB can serve as a reliable instrument for assessing religious behaviors.