ASSESSING MOTIVATION FOR CHANGE - PRELIMINARY DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF A SCALE MEASURING THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF CHANGING ALCOHOL ORDRUG-USE

This article describes the construction and preliminary evaluation of a scale (the Alcohol and Drug Consequences Questionnaire [ADCQ]) asses sing the costs and benefits of changing an alcohol or drug problem. Th e ADCQ's costs and benefits subscales displayed good internal reliabil ity (Cronbach alphas were .90 for the benefits subscale and .92 for th e costs subscale). Furthermore, the ADCQ was significantly related to respondents' ratings of the importance of achieving their alcohol or d rug treatment goal and to drinking at a 12-month follow-up. Measures a ssessing the costs and benefits of change appear to be useful indexes of client motivation and for predicting long-term change within the ad dictions.