Although epidemiologists and clinical researchers depend on longitudinal assessments to study process and change, for decades it has been known that survey reports of health problems show a bias where they decline inexplicably in frequency and severity from first to subsequent interviews. This decline, called the attenuation effect, is better documented in psychiatric than in alcohol use disorders, but this difference could be due to the paucity of research on the latter. The presence of attenuation biases in surveys of alcohol abuse and psychiatric disorders can lead to erroneous conclusions about the course of these diseases and of their precursors. Several explanations for the attenuation effect have been proposed, including a therapeutic benefit of repeated assessments, participants'changing interpretations of those assessments, or a process of learning/optimization of participant responses, but these explanations have not been tested. Moreover, the explanations have not been jointly considered in contrasting contexts of psychiatric disorders where the attenuation effect is well established, and alcohol disorders, where it is not yet established. We propose two specific aims. 1) To carefully delineate the attenuation effect in two intensive longitudinal studies of college students, by estimating its magnitude in a) surveys of alcohol problems and mental health assessed repeatedly over a four month period, and b) daily diary studies of alcohol use and mental state among students facing an acutely stressful event. 2) To reproduce the effect in experimental studies and to test hypotheses that it is due in part to a) a therapeutic effect of the repeated assessments, b) participants'increased understanding of the assessment instrument, or c) a tendency for participants use conversation norms to judge what they should report and what they think investigators expect to hear.
These aims will be approached with four studies, three of which are randomized experiments and one a psychophysiology lab study.

Public Health Relevance

This study will help researchers gather more accurate data on alcohol and psychiatric disorders assessed in longitudinal surveys. This, in turn, will facilitate understanding of causes and courses of these disorders, enabling prevention and intervention programs to be designed.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
1R01AA017672-01A1
Application #
7653507
Study Section
Behavioral Genetics and Epidemiology Study Section (BGES)
Program Officer
Bloss, Gregory
Project Start
2009-05-01
Project End
2012-04-30
Budget Start
2009-05-01
Budget End
2010-04-30
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2009
Total Cost
$397,390
Indirect Cost
Name
New York University
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
041968306
City
New York
State
NY
Country
United States
Zip Code
10012
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Lane, Sean P; Shrout, Patrick E (2010) Abstract: Assessing the Reliability of Within-Person Change Over Time: A Dynamic Factor Analysis Approach. Multivariate Behav Res 45:1027