NCJ Number
133801
Journal
Journal of Interpersonal Violence Volume: 6 Issue: 4 Dated: (December 1991) Pages: 411-422
Date Published
1991
Length
12 pages
Annotation
The relationship between the frequency and severity of violence and three parameters of alcohol abuse (acuteness, chronicity, and age of onset) as well as electroencephalographic characteristics were examined retrospectively in a sample of 85 male forensic psychiatric patients.
Abstract
Acuteness and chronicity of alcohol abuse were related to severity, but not to frequency of violence. Acute alcohol abusers appeared to suffer from more severe central nervous impairment than did nonabusers. No overall differences were found between early-onset and late-onset abusers. The absence of adverse central nervous system consequences of chronic alcohol abuse may have been due to the possibility of a greater span of abstinence among chronic abusers between the time of alcohol use and the electroencephalographic recording than that among acute abusers. Study findings do not appear inconsistent with the hypothesis that the central nervous system is an intervening variable in the alcohol abuse/violence link. 3 tables and 42 references (Author abstract modified)