The fact that alcoholism programs are biased in terms of the kind of
patients admitted to treatment is well recognized. The authors examined the
possible bias of preadmission screening procedures in an alcoholism
treatment program and investigated some of the criteria used by staff
clinicians in determining an applicant's acceptability for treatment. They
found that accepted and rejected applicants had highly similar
characteristics, differing only in age (accepted applicants were slightly
younger than those rejected) and source of referral. The overall findings
suggest that clinicians implicitly evaluate problem drinkers along
dimensions related to their perceived "treatability" in a given therapeutic
setting.Abstract Teaser