ABSTRACT
According to the Indian Health Service, substance abuse and Type 2 diabetes are serious problems among Native Americans. To assess substance use in a medical setting, valid screening tests are needed so the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), a simple brief screen for excessive drinking, and the CAGE-adapted to Include Drugs (CAGE-AID) for identifying primary care patients with alcohol and drug disorders were given 50 Northern Plains American Indians with diabetes. Both are short, easy to administer, have good sensitivity and specificity, and can be easily incorporated into a medical history protocol or intake procedure. Reliability coefficients were above .90 and appeared to have sufficient concurrent and divergent validity indicated by moderate correlations with the General Well-being Schedule (rs=-.39 and -.36), the Family-Adaptation, Partnership, Growth, Affection, & Resolve (r =-.47 and -.36), and the Beck Depression Inventory-IT (r = .36 and .29).
Subject(s)
Alcoholism/ethnology , Indians, North American/psychology , Mass Screening/statistics & numerical data , Personality Inventory/statistics & numerical data , Substance-Related Disorders/ethnology , Adult , Aged , Alcoholism/diagnosis , Alcoholism/epidemiology , Alcoholism/psychology , Comorbidity , Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2/epidemiology , Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2/ethnology , Female , Humans , Indians, North American/statistics & numerical data , Male , Mental Disorders/epidemiology , Mental Disorders/ethnology , Middle Aged , Primary Health Care , Psychometrics/statistics & numerical data , Reproducibility of Results , Statistics as Topic , Substance-Related Disorders/diagnosis , Substance-Related Disorders/epidemiology , Substance-Related Disorders/psychologyABSTRACT
The General Well-being Schedule is a brief indicator of subjective feelings of psychological well-being and distress. It is easy to administer, reliable, and valid, although its validity with American Indians has not been established. This study then assessed reliability, validity, and factor structure for a sample of 88 diabetic American Indians, who sought care for diabetes at an Indian Health Service hospital. Cronbach alpha was .89. A factor analysis indicated four dimensions. Adequate concurrent and divergent validity were noted in association with scores on the Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition, the depression scale on the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised, and Family-Adaptation, Partnership, Growth, Affection, & Resolve. These results suggest that the General Well-being Schedule is a reliable and valid measure of general well-being for this population of American Indians.
