Problem Drinking and Depression Among DWI Offenders: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study

Longitudinal data collected at 3 occasions of measurement from a convicted driving-while-intoxicated sample (n = 302) were used to study the interrelations between problem drinking and depressive symptomatology. Time intervals between occasions of measurement were approximately 9 months. Cross-lagged latent variable models indicated that higher levels of depression at Time 1 were significantly associated with lower levels of problem drinking at Time 2. Similarly, higher levels of problem drinking at Time 1 were significantly associated with lower levels of depression at Time 2. However, the direction of effects for the cross-lagged coefficients were reversed for the Time-2-Time-3 relations. Higher levels of depression at Time 2 were significantly associated with higher levels of problem drinking at Time 3, and higher levels of problem drinking at Time 2 were associated with higher levels of depression at Time 3. The results are interpreted to reflect a biphasic process.