STAGE OF CHANGE BY DRUG-PROBLEM IN CONCURRENT OPIOID, COCAINE, AND CIGARETTE USERS

Within the field of addiction, the majority of work regarding ''stages and processes of change'' has focused on single drug problems, such a s cigarette smoking or alcohol use. However, the majority of the subst ance abuse treatment population present with more than one substance u se disorder. This article reports the results of the internal consiste ncy and test-retest reliability of the University of Rhode Island Chan ge Assessment (URICA) in a sample of 41 methadone-maintained, opioid-d ependent male veterans who had concurrent problems of cigarette and co caine dependence. These volunteers were given a URICA for each of thei r three drug problems, followed by a repeated administration three to five days later. All the stage-of-change scale scores showed excellent internal consistency and stability across the three- to five-day inte rval for all three drug problems, thus confirming the reliability of t he measure in this population. URICA scores were lowest on the precont emplation stage, with higher and approximately equivalent scores on th e other three stage measures. Most surprising was that these profile s cores were almost identical across the three drugs tested, suggesting limits to the validity of this measure with this population.