Alcohol education for alcoholics. Relation to attitude changes and posttreatment abstinence.

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Abstract
Four of the 5 Passey and Pennington scales of attitudes toward alcohol and its use, and the Knowledge of Alcoholism Test, were administered to 98 men alcoholics (mean age 46 yr, mean education 11 grades) several days after admission to Veterans Administration Hospital, Fort Meade, South Dakota [USA] and before discharge, an average of 47 days later. Treatment consisted of attending lectures, films, and related discussions for 25 h/wk, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings weekly, and, when necessary, individual and group counseling, vitamin and disulfiram therapy, and other chemotherapy. Improvements in the inpatients'' attitudes toward treatment were positively related to gains in some areas of knowledge of alcoholism, but negatively related to educational level and duration of treatment (beyond 1 mo.). Gains in knowledge were negatively related to initial extent of knowledge and unrelated to age, educational level and duration of treatment. A follow-up 1 yr after discharge showed that posttreatment abstinence was not significantly related to improvement in attitudes, gains in knowledge, or accumulated knowledge.

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