Evaluation of the Adolescent Drug Abuse Diagnosis instrument in a Swiss sample of drug abusers

Objective. The aim of this study was to evaluate a French language version of the Adolescent Drug Abuse Diagnosis (ADAD) instrument in a Swiss sample of adolescent illicit drug and/or alcohol users. Participants and setting. The participants in the study were 102 French-speaking adolescents aged 13- 19 years who fitted the criteria of illicit drug or alcohol use (at least o ne substance-except tobacco-once a week during the last 3 months). They wer e recruited in hospitals, institutions and leisure places. Procedure. The A DAD was administered individually by trained psychologists. It was integrat ed into a broader protocol including alcohol and drug abuse DSM-IV diagnose s, the BDI-13 (Beck Depression Inventory), life events and treatment trajec tories. Results. The ADAD appears to show good inter-rater reliability; the subscales showed good internal coherence and the correlations between the composite scores and the severity ratings were moderate to high. Finally, t he results confirmed good concurrent validity for three out of eight ADAD d imensions. Conclusions. The French language version of the ADAD appears to be an adequate instrument for assessing drug use and associated problems in adolescents. Despite its complexity, the instrument has acceptable validit y, reliability and usefulness criteria, enabling international and transcul tural comparisons.