Psychosocial versus nicotine-only self-report measures for predicting follow-up smoking status

The most popular measure of tobacco dependence, the Fagerstrom Tolerance Qu estionnaire (FTQ), measures only tobacco-specific behaviors. In contrast, t he most popular assessment of addiction among polydrug users is the Addicti on Severity Index (ASI). Most of the subscales comprising the ASI are psych osocial measures, not drug-specific measures. A study was undertaken to com pare the predictive utility of these two contrasting measures. The NAS (ada pted from the FTQ) and the Addiction Severity Index (ASI),were used to pred ict future smoking status in a cohort of polydrug users followed annually f or 3 years. The baseline NAS score explained more of the variance in Time 2 and Time 3 smoking status than did the ASI subscales. When previous smokin g status was included as a covariate, however, the NAS no longer predicted future smoking status, whereas the ASI Subscales continued to explain signi ficant variance in future smoking status. Results suggest that when past sm oking behavior is known, a respondent's legal status and alcohol use may be more useful than a measure of tobacco dependence for predicting future smo king status