PROBLEM FORMULATION
The problem here is the reliance of traditional screening methods using self-reports based on the honesty of patients. Alcoholic screening needs to be measured by another more reliable source to increase screening accuracy and verify the results of the self-report. Hence, this problem can be addressed by the research question: What is the quantitative difference in EEG signals between AUD patients and healthy people?
For this problem, it is hypothesized that AUD alters the function of the human brain and leads to the differences between problematic alcohol users and healthy people. The differences are more significant in alcohol- dependent patients than in alcohol abusers.
RESEARCH DESIGN
Participants who meet the DSM-IV criteria were enrolled for the experiments.3 Participants were randomized and assigned into two separate groups (same sample size) with different drinking status:
- • Control group (group of participants without the disease or just minor disease): participants who are evaluated as healthy normal people
- • Case group (group of participants with the disease of interest): participants who are evaluated as AUD
The case group is then further assigned into two separate groups:
- • Case 1: participants who are evaluated as alcohol abuse (AA)
- • Case 2: participants who are evaluated as alcohol dependence (AD) Based on the recruitment requirements previously mentioned, the
experiment is defined as a case-control study with random samples. There are in total three independent samples and it is required to test the hypothesis based on the significant different power of each pair of two groups (control vs case 1 vs case 2) so the independent two samples’ t-test is used for each pair of comparisons.
