Faculty Articles

Relationships between Clinical Judgment, Self-Report and Breath Analysis Measures of Intoxication in Alcoholics

ORCID

0000-0001-7705-3993

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

ISSN

0022-006X

Publication Date

2-1979

Abstract

Three studies comparing alcoholics' self-reports, observers' ratings, and breath-test determinations of alcohol intoxication found that (a) alcoholics' self-reports of their recent drinking were valid when they had not been drinking; (b) when they had been drinking, their self-reports were frequently invalid and underreported; (c) incidence of discrepant self-reports was not a function of level of intoxication; and (d) trained observers could identify only 50% to 67% of the subjects who were intoxicated but gave invalid self-reports. Breath analysis for blood alcohol concentration should be a mandatory component of alcohol treatment programs and alcohol treatment outcome evaluations.

DOI

10.1037/0022-006X.47.1.204

Volume

47

Issue

1

First Page

204

Last Page

206

Peer Reviewed

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