Experimental bias resulting from using volunteers in alcoholism research.

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Abstract
As part of a routine screening battery, 60 men alcoholics (mean age 43 yr) admitted to an inpatient treatment program completed the 16th Personality Factor questionnaire (16 PF), the Alcohol Use Inventory, the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, 3 locus of control measures and a demographic questionnaire. The patients were then invited to participate in any of 4 research projects involving Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), Antabuse (disulfiram), group therapy and marital counseling. A stepwise discriminant function analysis was performed to determine whether volunteers differed from nonvolunteers. Of the 60 patients, 11 were classified as volunteers, 15 as pseudovolunteers (they volunteered for an experiment but did not keep their appointments) and 34 as nonvolunteers. The variables with the most discriminating power were intelligence (16 PF Factor B), experimenting (16 PF Factor Q) and mental-benefit drinking (Alcohol Use Inventory Scale 2), and volunteers scoring highest on all 3 variables. Differences were also found between volunteers for the A.A. and Antabuse experiments and volunteers for other experiments. Alcoholics voluntarily in treatment who also elect to participate in research are unrepresentative of the treatment population, and researchers are alerted to the possibility of bias in the results of experiments using volunteers as subjects.

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