Repeat DUI Offenders' Explanations for DUI Behavior

描述（由申请人提供）：在醉酒（DUI）的影响下驾驶所造成的巨大公共健康威胁，加上目前这种行为及其后果的稳定性，需要研究人员和治疗提供者更多地了解心理社会概况，包括一般DUI罪犯的认知和信念，特别是重复DUI罪犯。如果我们要为DUI开发有效的治疗方法，这种理解是至关重要的。我们的R 01项目（1 R 01 AA 014710 - 01 A1）继续前一个行动方针，评估和分析精神疾病和合并症的重复酒后驾车罪犯。这项研究和其他研究发现了精神科合并症和酒后驾车犯罪之间可靠和重要的联系。然而，很少有研究探讨了DUI行为的更接近的认知预测因素。这些认知因素，以及它们与社会心理变量的相互作用，可能被证明是DUI干预的重要目标。为了调查这些近端认知预测因子，R 03申请要求两年的支持，对重复DUI罪犯产生的DUI行为的解释进行二次分析，作为我们最初的NIAAA资助研究的一部分，减少DUI复发的循证治疗（1 R 01 AA 014710 - 01 A1）。该研究使用复合国际诊断访谈（CIDI）前瞻性地研究了精神障碍概况与DUI重复犯罪者之间的关系。它包括收集基线（N=779）和一年的随访数据（N=480），从住院的法院强制治疗寻求多个DUI罪犯，以及随访数据从一个子样本的间接线人（N=80）。拟议的R 03研究旨在分析罪犯的自由反应的解释，在后续产生的内容，语言结构和归因元素，探讨如何累犯的理解，他们的酒后驾车行为的延续，以及行为的更远的预测。具体而言，本研究将（a）确定这些罪犯如何理解和描述他们的行为（与解释这些相同罪犯行为的间接线人相比），（B）调查这些近端认知预测因子与罪犯累犯之间的关系，（c）探索罪犯对他们行为的理解如何与他们的心理健康相关，以及这种相互作用如何反过来与DUI累犯相关。公共卫生相关性：这项拟议的R 03研究将审查重复DUI罪犯为他们的罪行提供的解释的组成部分。通过研究重复DUI罪犯理解（和/或描述）自己行为的方式，我们可以了解对他们行为的潜在影响，以及他们对自己行为的归因（即，这些归因是否包含系统性偏见或与累犯和心理健康有关）。了解酒后驾车罪犯在治疗中提出的各种理由本身对治疗方案是有用的，因为目前还没有这种知识，可以确定重要的干预目标。例如，如果大多数犯罪者提供缺乏交通作为犯罪的原因，这会导致不同类型的干预，而不是大多数人声称他们喜欢从事危险行为的刺激。此外，如果归因偏差与该人群的累犯和心理健康有关，则针对这些偏差沿着与其对应的心理健康问题，可能会改善临床结果。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The enormous public health threat created by driving under the influence of intoxicants (DUI), coupled with the current stability in the rates of this behavior and its consequences, requires researchers and treatment providers to learn more about the psychosocial profiles, including the cognitions and beliefs of DUI offenders in general and repeat DUI offenders in particular. This understanding is crucial if we are to develop effective treatments for DUI. Our R01 project (1 R01 AA014710-01A1) pursued the former course of action, assessing and analyzing psychiatric disorders and comorbidity among repeat DUI offenders. That study and others have found reliable and significant links between psychiatric comorbidity and DUI offending. However, very few studies have examined the more proximal cognitive predictors of DUI behavior. These cognitive factors, and their interaction with psychosocial variables, might prove to be important targets for DUI intervention. To investigate these proximal cognitive predictors, this R03 application requests support for two years to conduct a secondary analysis of the explanations for their DUI behavior generated by repeat DUI offenders as part of our original NIAAA-funded study, Toward Evidence Based Treatments to Reduce DUI Relapse (1 R01 AA014710-01A1). That study used the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) to examine prospectively the relationship between psychiatric disorder profiles and DUI among repeat DUI offenders. It included the collection of baseline (N=779) and one-year follow-up data (N=480) from inpatient court-mandated treatment-seeking multiple DUI offenders, as well as follow-up data from a subsample of collateral informants (N=80). The proposed R03 study seeks to analyze the offenders' free-response explanations, generated at follow-up, in terms of content, language structure, and attributional elements, to explore how repeat offenders' understanding of their DUI behavior relates to the perpetuation of that behavior as well as the more distal predictors of the behavior. Specifically, this study will (a) identify how these offenders understand and describe their behavior (compared to collateral informants explaining these same offender behaviors), (b) investigate the relationship between these proximal cognitive predictors and offenders' recidivism, and (c) explore how offenders' understanding of their behavior relates to their mental health and how that interaction, in turn, relates to DUI recidivism. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This proposed R03 study will examine components of the explanations repeat DUI offenders offer for their offenses. By studying the way repeat DUI offenders understand (and/or describe) their own behavior, we can learn about both potential influences on their behavior, and the attributions they make for their own behavior (i.e., whether those attributions incorporate systematic biases or relate predictably to recidivism and mental health). Knowing the range of reasons offered by DUI offenders in treatment is useful in its own right for treatment programs, since such knowledge is currently unavailable and can identify important targets for intervention. For example, if the majority of offenders offer lack of transportation as a reason for offending, that leads to different types of interventions than if the majority claim that they enjoy the thrill of engaging in risky behaviors. Further, if attributional biases relate to recidivism and mental health in this population, targeting those biases along with the mental health issues to which they correspond, might improve clinical outcomes.