Kim J S, Kim G J, Lee J M, Lee C S, Oh J K
Department of Family Medicine, Alcoholic Treatment Center, Hanil Hospital, Taejon, Korea.
J Stud Alcohol. 1998 Jan;59(1):52-5. doi: 10.15288/jsa.1998.59.52.
Numerous studies on alcoholism treatment have indicated that there are many steps the alcoholic must take before he can be alcohol free, and the admission that he is an alcoholic is the first step towards that goal. This study concerns the validation of a 20-item questionnaire, for the objective evaluation of the insight status of alcoholics.
Alcoholic men (N = 58) were interviewed by three clinicians, and the decisions of all of the interviewers were concordant in categorizing 44 out of the 58 interviewees into three insight groups: poor, fair and good. Validation of the questionnaire was made against the 44 concordant categorizations.
The assessments of the patient's insight state by these two different methods (the interview results and the scores of this scale) were found to be highly and significantly correlated (r = .79, p < .001).
This scale may be useful for qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the insight of alcoholics, and may provide fundamental information in establishing different therapeutic strategies based on different insight states of the alcoholics in the recovery process.
