A substantial literature supports the concurrent, discriminant, and predictive validity of alcoholism subtypes. Because different methods and criteria for subtyping have been employed and variable results obtained, however, there is no clear consensus on the clinical utility of these subtypes. Using data from a placebo-controlled trial of sertraline in which participants were assessed using three different dichotomous subtyping approaches, we compared the resulting subtypes on pretreatment and treatment-related measures. We found high concordance between the two age-of-onset approaches, but poor concordance between either of the age-of-onset approaches and the one derived using cluster analysis. The poor concordance between an age-of-onset subtype and a cluster analytic subtyping approach differs from that seen in an analysis of data from a placebo-controlled study of ondansetron for the treatment of alcohol dependence (Roache et al. 2008). This difference may be attributable to the fact that Roache et al. (2008) included three self-report measures of aggression, which were not included in our cluster analysis [nor were they elements in the original cluster analysis conducted by Babor et al. (1992)]. The use of aggression measures to
