Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

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  Alcohol use and alcohol-related consequences among first-year college students: An examination of intraindividual variability and the role of alcohol expectancies

  Lee, Christine Mei Lan (The University of Arizona., 2002)

  While much of the attention focused on college alcohol use has been on the prevalence of heavy drinking and alcohol-related physical and behavioral harm, little is known about individual drinkers' experiences with alcohol, that is, their fluctuations in alcohol consumption and consequences over time. The present study used an intensive repeated measures within-person design to explore the extent to which intraindividual variation in the experience of alcohol-related consequences was a function of frequency of intoxication and the role alcohol expectancies played in those relationships. Across 10 consecutive weeks in one semester, 200 first-year college students completed weekly telephone interviews. Testing hypotheses based on harm reduction principles, hierarchical linear models were used to examine: (1) whether the concept of the point of diminished returns applied to first-year college students' alcohol use, and (2) whether there was an expectancy effect in the relationship between frequency of intoxication and the experience of alcohol-related consequences. Within-person (Level 1) analyses examined whether students' reports of heavy alcohol use were associated with a differential likelihood of experiencing positive and negative consequences compared to when moderate amounts of alcohol were consumed. Between-person (Level 2) analyses examined the extent to which within-person co-variation between alcohol use and consequences was moderated by alcohol expectancies. The results supported the general hypothesis of harm reduction, that negative consequences were minimized with low to moderate amounts of alcohol consumption. In contrast, positive consequences increased with more days of intoxication, not supporting the concept of the point of diminished returns in this population. Finally, an expectancy effect was found for moderate drinking weeks, but not for intoxicated drinking weeks. Students who felt it was more important to experience positive and to avoid experiencing negative consequences reported more positive and fewer negative consequences on weeks of moderate drinking. Discussion focuses on implications for harm reduction in general and programming targeted for the college population.
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  Correlates of spousal and parental alcoholism: An examination of the validity of the theory of codependency among wives and children of alcoholics.

  Hinkin, Charles Henry. (The University of Arizona., 1991)

  The concept of codependency has been advanced in recent years in an effort to explain certain psychological and behavioral traits purported to be characteristic of spouses and adult children of alcoholics. The core symptoms which have been considered to define codependency are: low self-esteem, dependency, depression, and excessive sensitivity to interpersonal opprobrium. Secondary features are: defensiveness, anger, marital discord, lower self-perceived psychological health in ones family of origin, and excess alcohol use. To test the validity of this hypothesized syndrome, 97 female subjects married to either an alcoholic (SA) (n = 31), a psychiatric patient (SP) (n = 35), or a dentistry patient (SD) (n = 31) were studied. These subjects were further dichotomized based on whether they had a positive family history (FH+) for alcoholism. Following the obtaining of informed consent, all subjects were administered a battery of psychological tests consisting of the MMPI-168, SCL-90, TSCS, DPE, DAS, and FOS. The results of 2-way MANOVA revealed a significant main effect for both husbands' diagnosis and family history for alcoholism for both the primary and secondary features of codependency. No interaction was present between the grouping factors. Relative to the SD subjects, the SA subjects significantly differed in the expected direction on measures of dependency, depression, interpersonal sensitivity, anger, dyadic adjustment, and prevalence of excess alcohol use. The SA subjects significantly differed from the SP subjects on all of the above measures with the exception of depression. FH+ subjects, compared to FH- subjects, significantly differed in the expected direction on measures of self-esteem, interpersonal sensitivity, anger, degree of psychological health in the family of origin, and prevalence of excess alcohol use. Contrary to expectation, the FH- group scored higher on the administered measure of defensiveness. With the exception of lower levels of psychological health in the family of origin, the SA/FH+ subjects did not statistically differ from the SA/FH- subjects. In addition, the SA and FH+ subjects also evidenced significantly higher scores on many other measures of psychologic symptomatology not purported to be characteristic of codependency. It was therefore concluded these data suggest that two dissociable subtypes of codependency may be identifiable: one subtype associated with parental alcoholism and one associated with spousal alcoholism.
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  PERCEIVED PARENTAL ATTITUDES AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO CHRONIC ALCOHOLISM IN A VETERANS ADMINISTRATION HOSPITAL PATIENT POPULATION: AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF MCCORD AND MCCORD'S THEORY OF THE ORIGINS OF ALCOHOLISM

  Bender, Robert Bradley, 1947- (The University of Arizona., 1974)