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How to have a high success rate in treatment: advice for evaluators of alcoholism programs
Author(s) -
MILLER WILLIAM R.,
SANCHEZCRAIG MARTHA
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
addiction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.424
H-Index - 193
eISSN - 1360-0443
pISSN - 0965-2140
DOI - 10.1046/j.1360-0443.1996.9167795.x
Subject(s) - advice (programming) , victory , psychology , alcohol , control (management) , social psychology , medicine , medical education , computer science , political science , artificial intelligence , biochemistry , chemistry , politics , law , programming language
Two seasoned alcohol treatment researchers offer tongue‐in‐cheek advice to novice program evaluators faced with increasing pressure to show high success rates. Based on published examples, they advise: (1) choose only good prognosis cases to evaluate; (2) keep follow‐up periods as short as possible; (3) avoid control and comparison groups; (4) choose measures carefully; (5) focus only on alcohol outcomes; (6) use liberal definitions of success; (7) rely solely upon self‐report and (8) always declare victory regardless of findings.