Date of Award
Spring 1979
Document Type
Dissertation - Restricted
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Education
First Advisor
Topetzs, Nich J.
Second Advisor
Tagatz, Glenn E.
Third Advisor
White, Dennis
Abstract
An experimental investigation into the psychiatric, biological, sociological, and psychological aspects of the female alcoholic utilized the Research Diagnostic Criteria (RDC), the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI), and the Symptom Distress Checklist (SCL-90) on a sample of seventy-one hospitalized female alcoholics. In Part I, the subjects were diagnosed as primary or secondary alcoholics based on their responses to the RDC. In Part II of the investigation, responses of the primary women alcoholics were compared to the responses of the secondary women alcoholics on biological, sociological, and psychological characteristics measured by the MCMI and the SCL-90. A multivariate analysis of variance tested the hypotheses that primary women alcoholics differ significantly from secondary women alcoholics on biological, sociological, and psychological aspects. The findings show that the biological, sociological, and psychological characteristics measured by the SCL-90 can predict inclusion in the subgroups of primary or secondary female alcoholism, The scales of the MCMI were not able to distinguish between the two groups studied. A multidimensional approach to the diagnoses of alcoholisms in women could include the RDC and the SCL-90.