SELF-REPORTED DRINKING AND ALCOHOL-RELATED PROBLEMS AMONG EARLY ADOLESCENTS - DIMENSIONALITY AND VALIDITY OVER 24 MONTHS

Objective: Researchers rely on adolescents' self-reports of alcohol co nsumption and alcohol-related problems, despite little evidence concer ning their validity. We assessed the reliability and validity of adole scents' self-reports, employing collateral validation and focusing on the understudied transitional years of early adolescence. Method: Subj ects were 214 boys and 247 girls who participated in school-wide surve ys that assessed drinking, drunkenness and alcohol-related problems ea ch year for 3 years. These measures were validated by collateral (peer ) reports and by separate, 7-day drinking calendars. Internal consiste ncy and test-retest reliability were also assessed. Results: Results r eplicated findings with older adolescents that drinking/drunkenness an d alcohol-related problems fall on two partially overlapping dimension s. Scales assessing each dimension had moderate to high internal consi stency and high test-retest stability. Correlations with collateral re ports were relatively strong for the drinking/drunkenness scale, moder ate for a dichotomous variable reflecting the presence or absence of a lcohol-related problems, and more modest for the alcohol-related probl ems scale. Correlations with diary reports of drinking behavior were s trong for drinking/drunkenness. Results generally replicated across ge nder and over time. Conclusions: Researchers can have some confidence in the reliability and validity of early adolescents' survey self-repo rts, particularly of alcohol consumption (alcohol-related problems occ urred with low base rates, perhaps limiting validity coefficients). Be cause drinking/drunkenness and alcohol-related problems shared 30% of their variance, factors other than consumption (e.g., personality fact ors) apparently influenced the experience of alcohol-related problems.