Rf. Anton et al., THE OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DRINKING SCALE - A NEW METHOD OF ASSESSING OUTCOME IN ALCOHOLISM-TREATMENT STUDIES, Archives of general psychiatry, 53(3), 1996, pp. 225-231
Background: The 14-item Obsessive Compulsive Drinking Scale (OCDS) is
a quick and reliable self-rating instrument that provides a total and
two subscale scores that measure some cognitive aspects of alcohol ''c
raving.'' This study validated further its utility as an alcoholism se
verity and treatment outcome instrument. Methods: Alcoholism severity
and analogue craving scales were administered at baseline, and the OCD
S was given at baseline and weekly to 41 alcohol-dependent individuals
who participated in a 12-week pharmacologic and cognitive-behavioral
treatment trial. Repeated-measures analysis of variance was used to ex
amine group differences in the OCDS scores of those individuals who re
mained abstinent or drank during the trial. Results: At baseline, the
OCDS was correlated with the alcohol composite score of the addiction
severity index (r=.48), the alcohol dependence scale (r=.42), the anal
ogue craving measures (range r=.40 to .57), and pre-study alcohol cons
umption (r=.60). Most importantly, the OCDS total and subscale scores
were significantly different between individuals who had relapse drink
ing, who had ''slip'' drinking, and who remained abstinent, with relap
sers showing the highest scores. Conclusions: The OCDS scores appear t
o be sensitive to alcoholism severity and change during abstinence and
relapse drinking. Since the shared variance with analogue craving mea
sures is only about 20% to 30%, it appears to be measuring a largely i
ndependent dimension of alcohol dependence. Its ease of use (5 minutes
per self-rating), reliability, validity, and analytic capabilities su
pport its utility as a tool to measure severity and improvement during
alcoholism treatment trials.