Drug users' test-retest reliability of self-reported alcohol use on the risk behavior assessment.

Using data collected from 218 street drug users in 11 cities in the United States, we examined the test-retest reliability of the alcohol-related items on the Risk Behavioral Assessment (RBA; National Institute on Drug Abuse, 1993), an instrument commonly used in drug abuse research. With a 48-hr retest interval, findings indicated excellent to good reliability for the following variables: age of first use, ever used alcohol, and days used alcohol in last 30 days. Items with fair to poor reliability were number of occasions used alcohol in last 30 days without injecting and number of times used alcohol immediately before or during sex. These findings suggest that self-report items on alcohol use from the RBA are generally reliable, particularly items that ask for more general, rather than specific, information.

Receiver operating characteristics for the brief symptom inventory depression, paranoid ideation, and psychoticism scales in a large sample of clinical inpatients.

A commonly used screening tool for psychopathology, the Brief Symptom Inventory, provides normative data for assessing current mental functioning across multiple domains. Using data from 654 psychiatric inpatients, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses were conducted for three scales, Depression, Paranoid Ideation, and Psychoticism. t ratios identified significant group differences on the Depression scale between patients diagnosed with or without depression but no differences on the Paranoid Ideation and Psychoticism scales between patients diagnosed with or without schizophrenia. Area under the curve for Depression was .65, indicating that the scale improved diagnostic prediction somewhat beyond chance; for Paranoid Ideation, the area was .52 and for Psychoticism, the area was .53, indicating that these two scales did not significantly improve diagnostic prediction beyond chance.

Depression as measured by the Beck Depression Inventory-II among injecting drug users.

This study conducts a confirmatory factor analysis of the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) with a sample of 598 individuals who reported recent injecting drug use. Findings indicate that out of four models tested, the best model for this sample is a three-factor solution (somatic, affective, and cognitive) previously reported by Buckley, Parker, and Heggie. The findings that nearly 50% of participants provided BDI-II scores indicating significant depressive symptomatology reveals that these individuals are in need of treatment for their psychiatric symptoms as well as substance use. Somatic symptoms are endorsed more strongly than affective or cognitive symptoms of depression, suggesting a possible, but yet poorly defined, relationship between depressive symptomatology and drug use that centers on shared somatic symptomatology.

Moderating effects of control on the relationship between stress and change.

Given the well-documented impact of stress on employees, it is important to understand moderating factors, especially in behavioral health treatment settings, where constant change occurs. Staff members at four mental health (n=663) and four substance abuse (n=256) treatment agencies completed questionnaires inquiring about perceptions of direct and indirect agency changes, stress experienced due to changes, and control and input into the changes. Results revealed that as direct and indirect change increased, stress increased; as level of control and input into changes increased, stress decreased. Control and input served as a moderating variable between stress and direct change, but not for indirect change.