Subtypes of Alcoholics Based on Psychometric Measures

One approach to subtyping alcoholics is the use of psychometric tests that quantify a person’s personality characteristics, psychological characteristics, and intelligence. For example, researchers have used the Personality Research Form, which measures basic personality traits, to establish alcoholism typologies. Other psychometric measures that have been employed in the classification of alcoholics, such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory, measure the presence of co-occurring psychiatric disorders in the patients. Still other subtypes are based on tests assessing the patient’s motivation for treatment. Although clinicians hope to use psychometric typologies to improve treatment planning and monitoring for their patients, several questions remain to be answered by additional research before the instruments and the typologies based on them achieve broad applicability.