AbstractThe present paper describes the outcome evaluation of a hospital‐based treatment programme for chronic ‘skid‐row’xs alcoholics. Patients who had been detoxified were randomly assigned either to the Alcoholism Treatment Programme or to a comparison facility elsewhere in the community. A 34‐item questionnaire was administered prior to assignment to treatment, and parallel forms of the questionnaire were administered at 5, 10 and 15 month intervals following discharge from treatment. The techniques of data reduction and analysis are described, and the results of these analyses reported. The use of the results obtained to direct systematic programme development is