This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (16) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Harris, P. M. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Attrition Revisited

Division of Social and Policy Sciences, The University of Texas at San Antonio, 6900 North Loop 1604 West, San Antonio, TX 78249

Attrition of subjects from therapeutic treatment programs, long recognized as a bane of evaluation researchers, is the focus of hundreds of studies purporting to explain, measure or correct it. This article discusses the scope and limitations of research regarding the causes of premature termination from psychotherapeutic and substance abuse programs and examines the applicability of proposed methodological remedies for assessing and countering attrition to the specific problem of research involving dropouts from treatment. By and large, research on the causes of attrition suffers from inadequate conceptualization and weak methodological designs. The researcher’s anticipation and measurement of factors driving premature program termination is key to the effective assessment and correction of problematic attrition in treatment evaluations. The phenomenon of attrition from treatment requires more rigorous attention from the evaluation community.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?