Compliance with disulfiram treatment of alcoholism.

One hundred twenty-four men were randomly assigned to receive disulfiram with a riboflavin marker or riboflavin alone. During a one year follow-up urine specimens were collected at each visit and analyzed for riboflavin. There was a strong relationship between excellent attendance and infrequent drinking. For subjects taking disulfiram there was a high correlation between a subject submitting 15 or more positive urines during follow-up and infrequent drinking. For the disulfiram patients there was also a strong relationship between continuous usage of disulfiram and infrequent drinking. However, the correlation between percentage of urine specimens positive for the riboflavin marker and infrequent drinking was slight. This occurred because a person who was drinking tended to return for follow-up only when he was not drinking and thus submitted only a few specimens of which the majority were positive. We conclude that (1) excellent attendance, (2) submission of a large number of positive urines and (3) a period of continuous compliance to the disulfiram regimen were highly associated with infrequent drinking.