Automobile Accidents as an Expression of Psychopathology in an Alcoholic Population

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
An attempt has been made to determine whether (a) alcoholic drivers are responsible for significantly more traffic accidents and moving violations than nonalcoholics, (b) accidents and violations incurred by alcoholic drivers are significantly related to drinking, (c) the alcoholic''s psychopathology is significantly related to traffic accidents. Lifetime traffic violation and accident histories were obtained by interview from 100 men, 50 alcoholics (mean age 36 years) and 50 nonalcoholics (mean age 34 years) consecutively admitted to an open psychiatric ward in a veterans rehabilitation center. The 50 alcoholic drivers reported nearly twice as many traffic violations and accidents which they caused as the 50 nonalcoholic drivers. The significant excess of both violations and accidents caused by the alcoholic drivers occurred after they had been drinking (4 oz. or more absolute alcohol within 6 hours). Each patient was evaluated by his psychotherapist to determine the presence of certain types of psycho-pathology and these psychopathology variables were correlated with the number of traffic accidents reported by each patient. A stepwise regression analysis was then used to determine if any combination of personality variables was significantly related to high accident poten- tial. In the alcoholic group, paranoid ideation was the psychopathology variable most highly correlated with traffic accidents. Other highly correlated psychopathology variables were those related to despondency, suicidal preoccupation or attempts, and chronic anger. A regression based on the data obtained from the alcoholic group indicated that a combination of 4 psychopathology variables was most predictive of their high accident rate: paranoid ideation, chronic rage, feelings of despondency, and aggressive behavior when sober, the latter variable having an inverse relationship to traffic accidents. It is concluded that certain combinations of personality difficulty are highly predictive of accident potential; and that in alcoholics the interplay between deleterious personality traits which are liberated by intoxication and the impairment of skill caused by intoxication is responsible for an excess of traffic "accidents," which, in the given circumstances, should be regarded as inevitabilities.

This publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit: