Repeat DUI Offenders' Explanations for DUI Behavior

描述（由申请人提供）：酒后驾车对公共健康造成了巨大威胁，加上目前这种行为及其后果的发生率稳定，要求研究人员和治疗提供者更多地了解心理社会概况，包括酒后驾车罪犯的认知和信念，特别是酒后驾车惯犯。如果我们要开发有效的酒后驾车治疗方法，这种理解是至关重要的。我们的R01项目（1 R01 AA014710-01A1）采用了前一种做法，评估和分析了多次酒后驾车违规者的精神疾病和合并症。这项研究和其他研究发现了精神疾病共病和酒后驾车犯罪之间可靠而重要的联系。然而，很少有研究调查了酒后驾车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，可能是酒后驾车干预的重要目标。为了研究这些近端认知预测因子，本R03申请申请了两年的支持，对重复酒后驾车者产生的酒后驾车行为的解释进行二次分析，作为我们最初niaaa资助的研究的一部分，基于证据的治疗减少酒后驾车复发（1 R01 AA014710-01A1）。该研究使用了综合国际诊断访谈（CIDI）来前瞻性地检查精神障碍特征与酒后驾车惯犯之间的关系。它包括收集基线数据（N=779）和一年随访数据（N=480），这些数据来自法院强制住院寻求治疗的多重酒后驾车罪犯，以及来自附属举报人子样本的随访数据（N=80）。本R03研究旨在从内容、语言结构和归因因素等方面分析犯罪者在随访中产生的自由反应解释，以探讨惯犯对其酒后驾驶行为的理解与该行为的延续以及该行为的更远的预测因素之间的关系。具体而言，本研究将(a)确定这些犯罪者如何理解和描述他们的行为（与解释这些相同犯罪者行为的间接举证人相比），(b)调查这些近端认知预测因素与犯罪者累犯之间的关系，以及(c)探索犯罪者对其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酒后驾车累犯相关。公共卫生相关性：这项建议的R03研究将检查多次酒后驾车违法者为其罪行提供的解释的组成部分。通过研究酒后驾车惯犯理解（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偏见或可预测地与累犯和心理健康有关）。了解酒后驾车罪犯在治疗过程中提供的一系列原因，对治疗方案本身是有用的，因为这些知识目前还无法获得，可以确定重要的干预目标。例如，如果大多数罪犯把缺乏交通工具作为犯罪的理由，那就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中的再犯和心理健康有关，那么针对这些偏差以及它们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.