Reasons for Drinking Questionnaire

Reasons for drinking among psychiatric outpatients: Relationship to drinking patterns.

“…Although Farber et al (1980) did not report the reliability of the Positive and Negative Reinforcement scales in the original sample, Correia and Carey (1995) provided evidence of adequate internal consistency for both scales in a college student sample; the Negative Reinforcement scale and the Positive Reinforcement scale yielded alphas of .84 and .65, respectively. Because the RFDQ had not previously been used with psychiatric outpatients, we evaluated the internal consistency of both scales in the present sample.…”

“…The Reasons for Drinking Questionnaire (RFDQ; Farber et al, 1980) includes 14 truefalse items. To adapt the instrument to the current sample, we changed an item referring to drinking from "to help me unwind after work" to "after a tough day."…”

“…Positive reinforcement motives discriminate less well between consumption patterns. Further evidence for the association between negative reinforcement and drinking problems was found in an alcoholic sample, 93% was classified as high negative reinforcement drinkers, with approximately equal numbers high and low on the positive reinforcement dimension (Farber et al, 1980).…”

“…In a prospective study, Jung (1977) differentiated mature from immature motives and found that immature motives (i.e., drinking to escape or to experience the effects of intoxication) were associated with increased drinking 1 year later. Farber, Khavari, and Douglass (1980) used factor analytic methods to develop an instrument that assessed positive reinforcement motives (primarily social-affiliative reasons for drinking) and negative reinforcement motives (primarily drinking for relief from unpleasant states, such as negative affect or boredom). These reinforcement dimensions relate consistently to drinking patterns; that is, people rated high on negative reinforcement motives drink more heavily than those rated low on the negative reinforcement dimension (Correia & Carey, 1995;Farber et al, 1980).…”

“…Farber, Khavari, and Douglass (1980) used factor analytic methods to develop an instrument that assessed positive reinforcement motives (primarily social-affiliative reasons for drinking) and negative reinforcement motives (primarily drinking for relief from unpleasant states, such as negative affect or boredom). These reinforcement dimensions relate consistently to drinking patterns; that is, people rated high on negative reinforcement motives drink more heavily than those rated low on the negative reinforcement dimension (Correia & Carey, 1995;Farber et al, 1980). Positive reinforcement motives discriminate less well between consumption patterns.…”