THE STRUCTURE AND CORRELATES OF ALCOHOL DEPENDENCE - WHO COLLABORATIVE PROJECT ON THE EARLY DETECTION OF PERSONS WITH HARMFUL ALCOHOL-CONSUMPTION .3.

The cross-cultural validity of the Alcohol Dependence Syndrome was tes ted on 13 symptoms of alcohol dependence which were assessed as part o f a WHO collaborative study of the early detection of harmful drinking . ne subjects were drinking patients in health care settings in Austra lia, Bulgaria, Kenya, Mexico, Norway, and the US. Principal Components Analyses were performed on the symptoms in each centre, and the degre e of agreement between the results was assessed by calculating coeffic ients of congruence between the item loadings on the first principal c omponent. In all six centres the first Principal Component accounted f or at least half of the total variance and all symptoms had positive l oadings greater than 0.40 on the first Principal Component. The coeffi cients of congruence were all 0.98 or more, and the 13 symptoms had in ternal consistency coefficients of 0.94 or more. An alcohol dependence score defined by the sum of positive responses to the 13 alcohol depe ndence symptoms was positively correlated with self-reported alcohol c onsumption, alcohol-related problems, serum gamma glutamyltransferase and a clinical examination assessment of alcoholism in all six samples .