A study of alcoholism treatment units--I. Treatment activities and the institutional response.

Alcoholism treatment units (ATUs) appear as the major institutional treatment system for alcoholics within the National Health Service. This paper is the first of a series of papers to report the results of a national survey on ATUs. It examines the varied treatment activities which are carried out in the institutional setting. Although the policies of many ATUs are based on a combination of group theory and eclecticism, there is a diversity of proceedings and treatment objectives. Future treatment provisions and their evaluation should consider the full range of influences that derive from patient characteristics and from institutional settings.