Abstract
The criminal records of individuals who were eligible to attend a drink-driver treatment programme were obtained for the period beginning 1978 and ending 1983. The programme was educational in focus and aimed at changing attitudes toward drinking and driving, rather than altering the actual drinking behaviour of participants. Of those eligible to attend (N = 381), 62% completed the course while 38% did not attend any sessions at all or failed to complete the programme. An examination was undertaken to examine differences between those completing the course and those not completing the course for pre- and post-test measures. Significant differences were not obtained for any pre-test measures, while differences were obtained between groups on the total number of crimes after treatment and the number of traffic-related violations at post-test, but not for any other outcome measure. Attendance at the course was not found to be related to subsequent decreases in drink-driving offences. A possible explanation of this result is that the focus of educational treatments are too broad to achieve specific behaviour change for multiple drink-driver offenders. It is accepted that the lack of a control or comparison treatment group, and the simple dependent measures employed, were important in limiting the utility of the findings presented. Some suggestions for overcoming these, and other related methodological problems in drink-driving research, are given.
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Anne E. Foon
Both authors formerly Public Health Officers, Eastern Sydney Area Public Health Unit Previously general practitioner, Orange NSW, Australia.