Validation of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test and the Drug Use Disorders Identification Test in a Swedish sample of suspected offenders with signs of mental health problems: results from the Mental Disorder, Substance Abuse and Crime study.

Substance abuse is common among offenders. One method widely used for the detection of substance abuse is screening. This study explored the concurrent validity of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and the Drug Use Disorders Identification Test (DUDIT) screening tools in relation to (a) substance abuse and dependency diagnoses and (b) three problem severity domains of the sixth version of the Addiction Severity Index in a sample of 181 suspected offenders with signs of mental health problems. The screening tools showed moderate to high accuracy for identification of dependency diagnoses. The AUDIT was associated with alcohol problem severity, whereas the DUDIT was associated with drug and legal problem severity. Administering the screening tools in the current population yields valid results. However, the suggested cutoff scores should be applied with caution due to the discrepancy between present and previous findings.

Swedish validation of the Early Assessment Risk List for Boys (EARL-20B), a decision aid for use with children presenting with conduct-disordered behaviour.

Risk and needs assessment of children with conduct-disordered behaviour has been hampered by a lack of validated and easy-to-use decision-support tools. In this study, we investigated reliability and concurrent validity of the Swedish translation of the Early Assessment Risk List for Boys (EARL-20B). Parents to 76 boys aged 6-12 years old, referred to child psychiatric clinics, completed questionnaires about child symptoms and were thereafter administered the EARL-20B. Good to excellent inter-rater agreement and moderate concurrent validity was found. We also investigated possible subgroups of children based on the assessment with the EARL-20B. Cluster analysis yielded a tentative four-cluster solution, where subgroups of boys differed with respect to external measures. Although further study of predictive validity and usefulness for treatment planning is needed, the findings suggest that the EARL-20B is a promising tool for structured assessment of boys presenting with antisocial behaviour in clinical child psychiatry.

Predicting aggressive and disruptive behavior in referred 6- to 12-year-old boys: prospective validation of the EARL-20B risk/needs checklist.

The authors investigated the predictive and incremental validity of the Early Assessment Risk List for boys (EARL-20B; Augimeri, Koegl, Webster, & Levene, 2001), a structured clinical checklist designed for the professional judgment of risk for aggressive and disruptive behaviors and risk/needs factor-based management of this risk. Seventy-six boys consecutively referred to child psychiatric outpatient clinics in mid-Sweden were evaluated according to the EARL-20B and with independent (not EARL-20B-based) clinical evaluations. The participants were prospectively followed after 6 and 30 months. EARL- 20B-based assessments were positively and moderately associated with aggressive (reactive and proactive aggression) and disruptive behavior (conduct problems and DSM-IV Conduct Disorder) at both subsequent evaluations. Clinical evaluations made without the instrument were not as consistently associated with outcome. Incremental predictive validity over unstructured clinical evaluations and Conduct Disorder at baseline suggested promising clinical utility. The checklist might be used to support clinical decision making for referred boys at risk for continued antisocial behavior.