THE OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DRINKING SCALE - A NEW METHOD OF ASSESSING OUTCOME IN ALCOHOLISM-TREATMENT STUDIES

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.