| PROJECT TITLE: | HEALING OF THE SPIRIT/AMERICAN INDIAN PATHWAYS TO ABSTINENCE |
| FUNDING SOURCE: | NIAAA |
| DATES OF FUNDING: | 1999-2003 |
| PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR(S): | Paul Spicer, PhD. |
| CENTER STAFF INVOLVED: | Marjorie Bezdek, Calvin Croy, Marvine Douville, Ann Wilson Frederick, Robert Moran, Nohoon Kwak, Paul Spicer, and Sheila Young |
SPECIFIC AIMS/RESEARCH GOALS:
This study has 4 Specific Aims:
- to investigate how abstinence is meaningfully construed and experienced by American Indian men and women;
- to determine the factors that are relevant to understanding how alcohol-dependent men and women give up drinking and maintain their abstinence;
- to establish a typology of pathways to abstinence in this community; and
- to link characteristics of American Indian individuals with their pathways
to abstinence.
RESEARCH DESIGN:
Open-ended ethnographic interviews with all participants in a previous study
(AI-SUPERPFP) who met DSM-IIIR criteria for lifetime alcohol dependence.
These interviews focus on positive and negative experiences that may be
associated with remission, family environment, and coping.
PARTICIPANTS:
180 enrolled members of a Northern Plains tribe who met DSM-IIIR criteria
for lifetime alcohol dependence in the AI-SUPERPFP diagnostic interview.
MEASURES:
Embedded within an open-ended interview focusing on the respondent’s
story are probes for the following:
- Negative events related to drinking
- Positive life changes associated with remission
- Factors in the maintenance of abstinence
- Family dynamics, and
- Coping strategies
These are being coded for subsequent qualitative data analysis.
PUBLICATIONS:
None at this time.
