SummaryThere are two main alcoholism treatment facilities serving the Belfast area, one being a general psychiatric hospital and the other a specialised unit. Alcoholic patients who had been hospitalised in each, numbering114and104respectively, were successfully followed up with the aim of establishing whether it was possible to predict the outcome of treatment on the basis of certain variables. It was concluded that the variables investigated did not show a strong or consistent enough association with outcome to provide a reliable method of prediction.