Effects of drinking pattern on neuropsychological performance among alcohol misusers.

To investigate neuropsychological performance among alcohol misusers as a function of drinking pattern, duration of problem drinking and age, 297 alcohol dependent inpatients who were chemically free approximately 10 days were studied. An analysis of variance design was used with age (less than 40 years, greater than or equal to 40 years), drinking pattern (bout, daily) and length of problem drinking (short-term, 0-4 years; middle-term, 5-10 years; long-term, greater than 10 years) serving as the between-subjects factors. Results showed that bout drinkers performed significantly better than daily drinkers on measures of short-term memory, internal scanning and visuospatial-visuomotor performance. Duration of problem drinking appeared to exert a much weaker effect on test performance, but age was a critical variable in predicting subjects' vulnerability to neuropsychological deficits.