The outcomes of inpatient alcoholics who reported that they had been coerced into treatment by commitment or pressure from others were compared in a follow‐up study to those of alcoholics who described themselves as voluntary admissions. Ten assessments of control over drinking, number of drinking days in the past week, and intoxication since previous appraisal were made by collaterals between 2 weeks and 18 months after treatment. Even though the data were analyzed in several ways, the number of significant differences did not exceed chance expectations. This suggests that the prognoses of alcoholics who present for treatment under court order or interpersonal pressure were not substantially different from those of men who claim to have entered without coercion. However, the differences between the groups' Control over Drinking ratings, even though not statistically significant, consistently favored the coerced admissions, which raises the possibility that their outcomes may have been slightly better than those of the voluntary admissions.

No abstract

We contrasted in two studies the effects of military trauma on Vietnam veterans who reported high and tow premilitary stress. In the first, we administered the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Interview (PTSD‐I), a premilitary modification of the Social Readjustment Rating Scale, and the Military Stress Scale to hospitalized veterans. Premilitary stress appeared to reduce the impact of combat on several trauma‐reexperiencing ratings, although the relevant evidence was inconsistent. In the second study, the premilitary stress main effects and the premilitary stress/combat interactions on four PTSD‐I factors were nonsignificant. Thus, the severities of most PTSD symptoms increased with trauma intensity, but not with milder premilitary stress. The inconsistent data on the impact of pretraumatic stress on the trauma severity/PTSD relationships suggest further study.