Psychological indices of court mandated and voluntary subjects in a residential treatment center

The purpose of this study was to examine patients in an inpatient alcohol and drug treatment setting. The goal of this study was to help professional therapists and treatment programs gain better insight into the dynamics of the patients in court mandated treatment through the Criminal Justice system and the voluntary admissions to inpatient treatment. Since there is growing evidence that factors seem to influence early termination, this study examined factors at intake, which could identify patients at risk. Using archival data from the intake to the termination, the researcher was able to strip all identifiers from the patient pool and then concentrate on the patients. The sample covers a total of 100 randomly selected patients admitted to treatment in the year 2006. The intake consisted of an Addiction Severity Index (ASI), an instrument widely used for intake purposes with established validity and consistency. The second instrument was the Quality of Life Scale developed by Dr. Gayle of the University of Michigan. The scale has been used in alcohol and drug treatment centers to assess clients for self-esteem and self worth. The instrument is widely used and has established validity. The advantage of this source of data is that it is totally objective. The data used truncated some 250 pages of data into court ordered treatment and voluntary treatments. The subjects used for this study were selected randomly from a court-ordered population and from a voluntary population. The data was examined using an ANOVA and descriptive statistical procedures. The results in this study show that there were significant differences between the groups. The study casts doubt on the generally accepted notion of denial as the all-encompassing predictor of early termination of treatment. The results of the ANOVA showed shared characteristics between the two groups however, significant differences were also found. The over riding factor was determined to be the court-mandated treatment. The group results indicated stability, acceptance of their treatment, and autonomy in comparison with the voluntary group, which had no mandate for treatment