Research Article: Determining the diagnostic cut-off on the Chinese version of severity of dependence scale for DSM-5 stimulant use disorder
Abstract:
To investigate the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Severity of Dependence Scale for stimulant (C-SDS-S) in screening for the DSM-5-defined Stimulant Use Disorder (SUD).
Retrospective chart review.
A total of 227 Chinese-speaking stimulant (methamphetamine and cocaine) users were identified from four previous studies conducted in Hong Kong. Their demographic data, frequency of stimulant use within the past 30 days, scorings for C-SDS-S and the severity of SUD at baseline were extracted and synthesized. In addition, test-retest reliability of C-SDS-S was assessed in 101 subjects who reported C-SDS-S scorings 4 weeks after baseline.
The C-SDS-S demonstrated an acceptable internal consistency with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.736. C-SDS-S scorings were associated with the severity of SUD (? = 0.292, p <.001) and with the frequency of stimulant use within the past 30 days (? = 0.196, p = .003). All items loaded into one factor which accounted for 50.21% of the variance. Receiver operating characteristic analysis demonstrated that a C-SDS-S cut-off score of ? 5 provided optimal discrimination for moderate-to-severe SUD among Chinese-speaking individuals using stimulants. Total scores and individual items of the C-SDS-S demonstrated fair to moderate 30-day test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.49; weighted Kappa’s = 0.25-0.46).
The C-SDS-S is a valid and reliable screening instrument to identify stimulant users with DSM-5 defined moderate-to-severe SUD in the Chinese-speaking population.
Introduction:
Amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) and cocaine are commonly misused drugs globally ( 1 ). Not only is ATS the commonest primary drug of misuse in Asia, it also contributes to more than half of its treatment-seeking drug users ( 1 ). Among Chinese-speaking countries and regions, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan, methamphetamine and cocaine account for the highest number of documented cases who come into a formal contact with authorities, more than that of heroin or cannabis ( 2 ).…
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