ENDORSEMENT OF DSM-IV DEPENDENCE CRITERIA AMONG CAFFEINE USERS

The purpose of this article is to determine whether some caffeine user s endorse clinical indicators of dependence and abuse. We asked 162 ra ndomly-selected caffeine users generic DSM-IV criteria for dependence, abuse, intoxication and withdrawal pertaining to their caffeine use i n the last year via a structured telephone interview. The prevalence o f endorsement of dependence items was 56% for strong desire or unsucce ssful attempt to stop use: 50% for spending a great deal of time with the drug, 28% for using more than intended, 18% for withdrawal, 14% fo r using despite knowledge of harm, 8% for tolerance and 1% for foregoi ng activities to use. Seven percent of users met DSM-IV criteria for c affeine intoxication and, among those who had tried to stop caffeine p ermanently, 24% met DSM-IV research criteria for caffeine withdrawal. Test-retest interviews for dependency agreed in 29/30 cases (97%). Eig ht expert substance abuse clinicians agreed with self-endorsed caffein e dependence 91% of the time. Our results replicate earlier work and s uggest that a substantial proportion of caffeine users exhibit depende nce-like behaviors. Further studies are needed to determine whether su ch users exhibit a clinically significant syndrome of drug dependence. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.