Perceived self-efficacy as a predictor of aftercare treatment entry by the detoxification patient.

63 urban, male, polysubstance abusers enrolled in an inpatient, hospital detoxification program with plans for aftercare were administered a set of 27 items describing behaviors that staff members nominated as necessary to make a transition from detoxification to aftercare. Patients were asked to rate each item twice, estimating (1) the importance of the described behavior to the achievement of aftercare and (2) their perceived ability to execute it. These ratings produced two highly saturated univariate tests, the Importance to Aftercare Scale (alpha = .89) of 17 items that did not predict aftercare entry and the Perceived Efficacy to Aftercare Entry Scale (alpha = .90) of 20 items which did correlate (.28) with entering aftercare.