Correlates of Alcoholic Blackout Experience
5
similar to alcohol dependence of DSM, for which it was a model. All patients
were attending the hospital alcohol treatment program.
Exclusion criteria for the study were: (i) a primary hospital diagnosis
other than that of alcohol dependence syndrome (ii) history of head injury,
cerebrovascular accident or illness (including frank liver disease) which could
potentially affect neuropsychological functioning (iii) history of psychotropic
drug abuse, apart from alcohol (iv) less than three weeks abstinence from
alcohol prior to neuropsychological examination. Of the sample, 76% were
male; the majority (61%) were from socio-economic groups I and II - by the
classification scheme of the Central Statistics Office [15] - , 24% were single,
61% married, 14% separated or widowed. The mean duration of problem
drinking was 9.1 years (SD = 6.5) and subjects had spent an average of 136
days (SD = 202) in a psychiatric hospital for alcohol problems over 2.5
hospitalisations (SD = 3.1). A majority of the sample, 60%, were considered
probably cognitively impaired by their referring physicians and the referral
was for confirmation/disconfirmation of this clinical impression; for the
remainder, there was merely a query about intellectual status. It was not usual
hospital practice to refer intellectually disabled persons clinically considered
to suffer from alcoholic dementia, Korsakoff's syndrome or hepatic
encephalopathy for neuropsychological evaluation. Psychometric examination
led to some 70% of the patients being judged impaired. Written, informed
consent was obtained from participants at the time of neuropsychological