Drinking patterns and their predictive factors in CONTROL: a 12-month prospective study in a sample of alcohol-dependent patients initiating treatment.

Aims: To describe the drinking patterns and their baseline predictive factors during a 12-month period after an initial evaluation for alcohol treatment.

Methods: CONTROL is a single-center, prospective, observational study evaluating consecutive alcohol-dependent patients. Using a curve clustering methodology based on a polynomial regression mixture model, we identified three clusters of patients with dominant alcohol use patterns described as mostly abstainers, mostly moderate drinkers and mostly heavy drinkers.