A content analysis of fifty studies done on controlled drinking by alcoholics

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine and evaluate the research that has been conducted in the controlled drinking treatment area. In order to accomplished this goal fifty chosen studies over the last twenty years were subjected to a content analysis using nine criteria. This was done in order to evaluate the research that has been done on controlled drinking to see if it has been effective in trying to show that controlled drinking for some alcoholics is a possible goal. Methods: Nine criteria were used to measure the effective-ness of the research that has been done with controlled drinking. These nine criteria were: (1) What is the relative frequency of various types of controlled drinking outcome reports in terms of research design? (2) What is the definition of alcoholism given? (3) What is the samplying procedure used and the size? (4) What is they type of agency or setting utilized? (5) Was the treatment voluntary or non-voluntary? (6) What was the length of the study? (7) What were the evaluation measures used for treatment? (8) Was there a follow-up conducted and (9) What type of treatment mode was utilized? Finally the effectiveness of the research done so far in the controlled treatment are was evaluated. Findings: From the data was gathered and evaluated for this thesis, it was found that the research done in the last twenty years on controlled drinking has not been very effective. 1. Most of the research is done by empirical observation and does not use a control group. 2. A sizeable proportion of the studies utilize non-voluntary participants. 3. All of the studies do not conduct follow-ups after treatment. 4. The type of agency or setting used for treatment varies and does not seem to have any correlation with a controlled drinking outcome. 5. Too many of the studies utilize a small sample (under thirty participants) which would not seem to be valid in this type of research. 6. A sizeable proportion of the studies were short term instead of long term. In a sizeable proportion of the studies the researcher went back after a number of years to follow up a case he did not treat. 7. There did not seem to be any correlation be-tween treatment done and an outcome of controlled drinking. 8. Over half of the studies did not give any criteria to evaluate their program effectively. 9. None of the studies gave a definition of alcoholism.