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M W Perrine

Publications and source records attributed to M W Perrine.

13 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1998

Alcohol consumption, sensation seeking and ski injury: a case-control study.

OBJECTIVE: Alcohol consumption is known to be associated with both risk of accidental injury and with sensation seeking, and sensation seeking has been found to be common among those engaging in such high-risk activities as skiing. However, few studies have examined the joint association of alcohol consumption and sensation seeking on injury. METHOD: Alcohol consumption prior to injury and sensation-seeking disposition are analyzed on 389 injured skiers (clinic sample) and 899 randomly selected uninjured skiers (trailside sample) at a Northeastern ski resort. Cases and controls were asked questions pertaining to drinking within 24 hours, amount consumed, time lapsed between the last drink and the event, skiing ability, and sensation seeking. RESULTS: The clinic sample was more likely to be female, to have less skiing experience, to score lower on sensation seeking and to have been drinking within 24 hours compared to the trailside sample. However, they were less likely to have had six or more drinks within 24 hours and were more likely to report a greater time lapse between the last drink and injury or interview. A larger proportion of those who reported drinking in both samples scored high on sensation seeking compared to those who reported not drinking. Logistic regression analysis found the following variables predictive of ski injury: female, low on sensation seeking, amount of alcohol consumed prior to the event, a longer time lapsed between drinking and the event, time of day (later) and day of the week (weekend). CONCLUSIONS: The data suggest that, while drinking within 24 hours is positively associated with sensation seeking, drinking and not sensation seeking is positively predictive of injury. Drinking at least 12 hours prior to skiing, not drinking in close proximity to skiing, may increase risk for accidental injury, possibly due to a hangover or residual alcohol effect in which fatigue may play a part.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

Individual differences in alcohol responsivity: physiological, psychomotor and subjective response domains.

OBJECTIVE: Psychometrically stable measures of individual differences in response to consuming alcohol were developed as part of an ongoing project investigating "high-tolerant" drinking drivers. The derived measures were correlated with diagnostic criteria of alcohol abuse and dependence, as well as drinking frequency, heavy drinking and tolerance estimations. METHOD: Male subjects (N = 94), 21 to 59 years old, participated in each of two identical alcohol consumption sessions (mean dose = 0.78 g/kg). Multiple response measures obtained before and after drinking (mean BAC = 78 mg/dl, descending) were used to compute postconsumption regression residuals that were factor analyzed. RESULTS: Factors reflecting psychomotor, subjective and physiological responsivity to alcohol were extracted. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated consistent psychomotor and physiological factor structures across the two testing sessions, but a bifurcation of the subjective measures. Test-retest correlations of the responsivity residuals indicated medium to moderately large effect sizes (mean = .32, range = .15-.51). Residuals summated within each response domain indicate moderate internal consistency (mean = .56, range = .45-.72) and higher reliabilities than single measure indices (range = .53-.59). Summated residuals within the response domains suggest diminished responsivity is associated with more severe alcohol-use diagnoses and were differentially predictive of self-reported drinking practices. CONCLUSIONS: Alcohol responsivity is multidimensional. Individual differences across different domains can be measured reliably and are associated with different patterns of alcohol use and abuse. Greater attention should be given to the specific domain of alcohol responsivity measures obtained in past and future research that relates individual differences to alcohol-related problems.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

The transmission of parent/adult-child drinking patterns: testing a gender-specific structural model.

A structural model on parent/adult-child alcohol use patterns was examined. Three analytical blocks were specified: adult-children's alcohol use onset by types of alcoholic beverage, their current use of these alcoholic beverages, and parents' drinking patterns. The model was examined with data collected from drunken driving offenders in California and Maryland treatment programs. The findings indicate that parent/child alcohol use transmission is more gender specific than race specific; fathers' drinking tends to affect sons' drinking and mothers' drinking tends to affect daughters' drinking. Beer use onset is the earliest and more effective in influencing future alcohol use than the onset of wine or liquor.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed1996

Drinking by police officers, general drivers and late-night drivers.

OBJECTIVE: This study compares police officers' reported alcohol use with similar reports from age- and gender-matched samples from the general driving population (GDP) and drivers recruited at high-risk hours who are most likely to drink and drive (roadside drivers). METHOD: Data were derived from interviews with 239 police officers who spent at least 5% of their time on alcohol or traffic enforcement; 243 subjects from the GDP, selected by random-digit dialing; and 249 drivers recruited at roadside on Friday and Saturday nights between 10:00 PM and 3:00 AM. RESULTS: Officers report drinking less frequently and in smaller quantities than either of the driver samples. Differences between police and general drivers are modest: e.g., usual frequency of drinking (1 to < 3 vs 3 or 4 times/month; p < or = .001) and number of days/average month with > or = 2 drinks/day (mean = 2.5 [+/- 3.4] vs 4.9 [+/- 6.5]; p < or = .001). There are greater differences between police officers and roadside drivers: e.g., 14.2% and 2.4%, respectively, abstain (vs 15.6% of general drivers; police vs general drivers; NS; police and general drivers vs roadside drivers, p < or = .001). CONCLUSIONS: The data suggest that officers' drinking differs significantly from that of drivers most likely to be driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI). If this is so, police training programs pertaining to DUI and other alcohol-related offenses should pay explicit attention to the effects of alcohol and not assume that all officers have experienced them.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Self-report of drinking using touch-tone telephone: extending the limits of reliable daily contact.

OBJECTIVE: Retrospective self-reports of alcohol consumption are ubiquitous in the alcohol research field. Time frames of these reports range from a week to a year or longer and are subject to several influences of bias that may have important clinical, epidemiological and methodological consequences. In order to specify drinking patterns more precisely, a study was conducted to monitor alcohol consumption on a daily basis. METHOD: Subjects (N = 51) responded for 112 days on an Interactive Voice Response system by entering their data daily using the touch-tone pad of their telephone. Each day, subjects answered 11 questions relating to drinking (including quantity) and to variables believed to affect consumption (e.g., stress level). RESULTS: The overall response rate was 93.0%. Subjects reported consuming at least one drink on 51.2% of all 5,151 reporting days (mean number of drinks reported = 4.6). Following completion of the study, subjects were also asked to recall consumption retrospectively using a standard quantity-frequency questionnaire. CONCLUSIONS: The present study demonstrated that: (1) data can be collected on a daily basis efficiently, and (2) traditional methods of data collection (e.g., quantity-frequency) result in a significant underreporting bias for heavier drinkers.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Validation of daily self-reported alcohol consumption using interactive voice response (IVR) technology.

OBJECTIVE: This study assesses the validity of daily self-reported drinking data obtained using an automated touch-tone interactive voice response (IVR) system. METHOD: Subjects (N = 30) reported alcohol consumption daily for 28 days using the IVR system. Concurrently, breath and saliva samples were obtained each night for objective determination of blood alcohol concentrations (BACs). Partners living with the subjects provided collateral reports daily. Retrospective drinking records were obtained from both partners at the outset of the study and from the target subjects at the end of the study, using timeline follow-back procedures referencing the target subjects' drinking over the previous 28-day period. RESULTS: Subjects reported drinking on 55.2% of the 840 possible subject days, and positive BAC readings were obtained on 25.9% of these days. The overall correlation between self-report and measured BAC was .72. Within-subject correlations between daily IVR reports and measured BACs ranged from -.07 to .92, with a mean of .57. The correlations between self-reported drinking and the collateral reports ranged from .18 to 1.0, with a mean of .89. Correlations between the daily self-reports and the timeline follow-back records obtained at the end of the study ranged from -.22 to .96, with a mean of .51. CONCLUSIONS: IVR technology provides an innovative, user-friendly methodology for obtaining valid measures of daily alcohol consumption. The validity of these measures may be differentially highest for frequent, heavy drinkers, a group for whom traditional assessment methods often produce the most biased underestimates.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Cycles of alcohol dependence: frequency-domain analyses of daily drinking logs for matched alcohol-dependent and nondependent subjects.

OBJECTIVE: This study was undertaken to evaluate possible differences in the patterns of daily alcohol use, in terms of periodicity or rhythmicity of consumption, between alcohol-dependent and nondependent drinkers otherwise matched on the basis of quantity and frequency of alcohol use. METHOD: Frequency-domain time-series analysis was applied to daily drinking logs of six alcohol-dependent and six nondependent male subjects matched for consumption quantity and frequency who had participated in a larger 112-day study of alcohol consumption patterns using an innovative touch-tone telephone method of daily self-report. Spectral analysis partitioned variance in the drinking logs among statistically independent frequency cycles of relatively heavier and lighter drinking. The percentage of variance accounted for by fast (< 4 days), medium (7 +/- 3 days) and slow (> 10 days) cycle periods was compared for diagnostic group differences. RESULTS: Effective matching precluded consumption quantity, frequency or variability differences between the groups. Spectral analysis of the time-series data revealed group differences in the rhythmicity, or cyclical characteristics, of the drinking logs. The drinking logs of alcohol-dependent subjects exhibited more pronounced weekly cycles, whereas drinking logs of nondependent subjects fluctuated over longer periods. CONCLUSIONS: Temporal patterns of regular alcohol use may be an important behavioral variable influencing the seriousness of consequences associated with drinking, which may partly elucidate the relatively weak relationship between dependence symptomatology and consumption quantity-frequency.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

When alcohol and water don't mix: diving under the influence.

The impairing effects of alcohol on divers' abilities to perform shallow-water entry dives were investigated under controlled conditions. Each of 13 male recreational divers, 21 to 35 years old, performed three shallow-entry dives during each of seven diving sessions at various blood alcohol concentrations (BACs). The mean group BACs of Diving Sessions 1-7 were 0, 17, 40, 71, 100, 123 and 97 mg/dl, respectively. Diving performances were videotaped and rated on their relative risk of injury due to contact with the pool bottom if the depth had actually been 3.5 feet. The data indicate progressive and significant impairment of diving performance at BACs of 40 mg/dl (or 0.04 g/dl, or 0.04%) and higher. Corroborating evidence of alcohol impairment was obtained from administering Field Sobriety Tests following Sessions 1, 5, 6 and 7; almost all subjects failed the tests at the higher BAC sessions. An analysis of the self-ratings of diving performances indicated that the divers were not aware of either their degraded performance or the increased risk of injury resulting from diving after drinking.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Development and validation of the Biphasic Alcohol Effects Scale.

Alcohol produces stimulant and sedative effects, and both types of effect are thought to influence drinking practices. This article describes the development and preliminary validation of the Biphasic Alcohol Effects Scale (BAES), a self-report, unipolar adjective rating scale designed to measure both stimulant and sedative effects of alcohol. An initial pool of 12 stimulant and 12 sedative items was derived from previous alcohol effect measures, and from descriptors of intoxication generated by subjects during interviews conducted on both the ascending and descending limbs of the blood alcohol curve. This item pool was administered to a sample of sober college students twice, with a 2-week inter-test interval. Items that were difficult to comprehend, or that had high ratings or low test-retest reliability, were eliminated, resulting in a seven-item stimulant subscale and a seven-item sedative subscale. These subscales showed high internal consistency in a sober state, which was not improved by additional item deletion. The data from this study also provided a basis for revising the instructions for the BAES. The new 14-item instrument was then given to 30 male and 12 female nonalcoholics on the ascending and descending limbs of the blood alcohol curve, after the administration of either 0.75 ml/kg alcohol (males) or 0.65 ml/kg alcohol (females). Internal consistency was high for both BAES subscales on both limbs of the blood alcohol curve (Cronbach's alpha = 0.85 to 0.94), and was not improved by additional item deletion. Factor analyses conducted on both limbs of the blood alcohol curve supported the proposed factor structure of the BAES.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adult↗
PubMed1991

The long-term traffic safety impact of a pilot alcohol abuse treatment as an alternative to license suspensions.

During the 4-year period following a repeat driving under the influence (DUI) conviction, participants in 12-month treatment programs had worse overall traffic safety records than did recipients of license suspensions. The results from a series of analyses using repeated measures analysis of covariance showed that, in comparison with license-suspension recipients: (i) participants had significantly higher rates (70%) of nonalcohol-related accidents and convictions, (ii) participants had a significantly lower rate (9%) of alcohol-related convictions, but no difference was found on alcohol-related accidents, and (iii) participants had a significantly higher rate (30%) of total accidents (p less than .05). These results suggest that the use of license-suspension waiver as an incentive to participate in a drinking driver program had a negative impact on traffic safety. The predicted reductions in alcohol-related accidents among program participants did not occur, and reductions in nonalcohol-related accidents, which could have been achieved with license suspensions, were sacrificed. It was recommended that some other alternative besides license-suspension waivers be used as an inducement for repeat DUI offenders to participate in treatment.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed1976

Alcohol and highway crashes. Closing the gap between epidemiology and experimentation.

It is frequently observed that alcohol-impaired drivers involved in certain types of crashes apparently 'couldn't stop in time'. However accurate this observation, it is simply a description and is not an adequate explanation. Therein lies the basis for the gap between epidemiology and experimentation. If alcohol actually does degrade a motorist's performance and increase the probability of his being responsible for a fatal crash, then alcohol-induced changes in driving behavior should be manifest and should be measurable. However, no controlled study has previously been conducted to obtain systematic but unobtrusive data on the actual influences of alcohol upon real-world driving behavior in its natural environment. One recently completed field study is reported which was designed to provide such data by means of unobtrusive electronic measures of nocturnal driving performance. In the present paper, to illustrate one approach to closing the gap between epidemiology and experimentation, one combination variable was selected which lends itself readily to comparison across the full spectrum of alcohol investigation: reaction time and braking performance. A review of the literature concerning this interrelated variable examined alcohol influences upon reaction time as investigated in laboratory, simulator, and instrumented car experiments, as well as alcohol influences upon braking performance in instrumented car experiments and in our recent field study involving unobtrusive electronic measures. The reviewed experiments were interpreted in terms of a conceptualization of the information-processing sequence which leads up to brake use. On the basis of the reviewed results, it was concluded that alcohol increases reaction time (both simple and choice) appreciably more in driving situations than in laboratory experiments. It was also concluded that a consistent alcohol impairment of the qualitative aspects of braking performance is manifest in driving situations, for example, as reflected by changes in brake-pressure modulation. More specifically, the braking performance of motorists and subjects at high BACs is abrupt, unsmooth, and less controlled than that of sober motorists or the same subjects with no alcohol. It was concluded that at least in terms of quality, alcohol impairs response implementation of the final stage of the information-processing sequence. It was hypothesized that the abrupt, lower quality braking performance observed at high BACs results--at least in part--from less time remaining available for stopping because the information-processing time has been increased by alcohol at some previous stage--apparently the response-selection stage. At the most general level, it was suggested that high BACs both increase the time necessary to begin applying the brakes, as well as reduce the degree of control in the actual use of the brakes during the course of stopping. These two factors in combination probably account for a large part of the alcohol contribution to highway crashes.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed1975

Alcohol involvement in highway crashes. A review of the epidemiologic evidence.

There is probably no other single aspect of American behavior which is so underinvestigated as driving, and yet which has such an impact on our daily lives and on our annual death rate. Evidence is reviewed which indicates that the probability of being responsible for a fatal crash increases sharply as blood alcohol concentrations increase above those achieved by heavy social drinking.

Accidents, Traffic↗