COMPARING SCREENING INSTRUMENTS

Using 11th grade subjects, two screening instruments designed to ident ify youth with substance use problems were compared. The main results were: 1) that the instruments gave different diagnoses for about 1 out of 5 youth who are using alcohol or drugs; 2) that the probability of being identified by these tests increased only among youth who were b ecoming drunk multiple times each week; and 3) that these instruments do not predict adolescent problems or substance use over time substant ially better than a simpler measure of the frequency of substance use.