Implicit preadmission screening criteria in an alcoholism treatment program

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.