Session on Negative Affect, Drinking Drivers, and Remedial Programs. Negative Affect, Self-Appraisal, and Temptation to Drink of Court Mandated DUI Offenders

Several pilot studies were conducted with court mandated first-time DUI offenders in Mississippi. These studies were designed to focus on measuring interrelated negative affective states that could moderate intervention response. We hypothesize that intervention relevant states involve a cluster of emotions which have both affective and cognitive elements and may moderate both the process and, ultimately, intervention outcome. We used cross-sectional surveys during 2003-2006 to assess depressed mood, negative and positive affect, anger/hostility, temptation to drink, and confidence to abstain. In general, results showed that offenders with depressed mood were more receptive to counseling, and a reported tendency toward depressed mood was related to low confidence to change drinking behavior and drinking driving behavior, high temptation to drink, and the experience of more emotional states, especially negative affect at some point in the drinking driving sequence (include immediately before initiating drinking and immediately before driving. The results of these studies have important implications for understanding the intervention process with problem drinkers after a DUI conviction or alcohol- related injury, either of which is likely to arouse dissonance. Introduction: Understanding motivational processes and behavioral change mechanisms that mediate and moderate therapeutic processes and their effects has been an underlying research theme (Project MATCH, 1997). In reanalysis of Project Match data (a) depressed mood (Longabaugh et al., 2005) and (b) self- efficacy (Ilgen et al., 2006) have been found to moderate non-specific therapeutic processes of (a) therapist introduced emotional content and (b) therapeutic alliance. In court mandated intervention with convicted drinking-drivers, recent studies have shown that: (a) depressed mood moderated the effectiveness of an individually delivered brief intervention that was added to a standard group-delivered short (4 week, 10-hour) intervention program, in that it reduced recidivism for depressed mood offenders but not for non- depressed mood offenders (Wells-Parker & Williams, 2002 (WP & W)); (b) that depressed mood was associated with lower efficacy, but higher motivation to change and action to change (WP & W, 2002); and that (c) depressed mood was associated with higher intervention receptivity and interest in additional counseling at program entry (Wells-Parker et al., 2006). Depressed mood more frequently occurred among offenders with higher levels of drinking problems, however problem severity did not account for or mediate the intervention by depression interaction (WP & W, 2002). These studies suggest that depressed mood and related cognitions and motivational states may moderate therapeutic processes in brief and short term interventions occurring in close proximity to "window of opportunity" events such as drinking/driving. How motivational states, mood and cognitions and may be interrelated have not been well established empirically. Methods: General Protocol: During the first of 4 sessions of the Mississippi Alcohol Safety Education Program (MASEP), a court-mandated DUI intervention program for first-time DUI offenders, participants complete a paper/pencil assessment (Landrum et al., 1993) that includes