Suchergebnisse

Short screenings for alcohol use disorder are crucial for public health purposes, but current self-reported measures have several pitfalls and may be unreliable. The main aim of our study was to provide empirical evidence on the psychometric performance of self-reports currently used against a clinical interview of alcohol use disorder used as the gold standard. We also compared biomarkers of alcohol use to self-reported alcohol use.

Intense stress increases substance use (SU). However, little is known about the extent to which distinctive forms of stress should be weighted with regard to their effects on SU. This study aimed to determine whether family-related stress factors (FSF) influenced SU in a different way than external stress factors (ESF). Data was drawn from a Swiss cohort study on SU risk factors (C-SURF), involving 5,308 young adult men. Twelve month use of alcohol and of illicit substances was assessed. FSF and ESF for the time period preceding SU were measured. FSF and ESF were both significantly associated with SU. FSF had a greater impact on the use of most substances than did ESF. The FSF with the strongest association with SU was lack of parental monitoring. Regarding ESF, the cumulative number of stressful external events had a higher impact on SU than previous physical or sexual assault by a stranger. In contrast, physical or sexual assault by a family member was not found to be associated with subsequent SU. These findings have important implications for SU prevention programmes focusing on male teenagers, as it is difficult to screen and intervene in subtle forms of maltreatment in families.

<i>Objective:</i> The aim of the study was to validate a French adaptation of the 5th version of the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) instrument in a Swiss sample of illicit drug users<i>. Participants and Setting:</i> The participants in the study were 54 French-speaking dependent patients, most of them with opiates as the drug of first choice. <i>Procedure:</i> Analyses of internal consistency (convergent and discriminant validity) and reliability, including measures of test-retest and inter-observer correlations, were conducted. <i>Results:</i> Besides good applicability of the test, the results on composite scores (CSs) indicate comparable results to those obtained in a sample of American opiate-dependent patients. Across the seven dimensions of the ASI, Cronbach's α ranged from 0.42 to 0.76, test-retest correlations coefficients ranged from 0.48 to 0.98, while for CSs, inter-observer correlations ranged from 0.76 to 0.99. <i>Conclusions:</i> Despite several limitations, the French version of the ASI presents acceptable criteria of applicability, validity and reliability in a sample of drug-dependent patients.