Gm. Miele et al., Substance Dependence Severity Scale - Reliability and validity for ICD-10 substance use disorders, ADDICT BEHA, 26(4), 2001, pp. 603-612
The Substance Dependence Severity Scale (SDSS) is a semistructured intervie
w that assesses the severity of the DSM-IV diagnoses of dependence and abus
e and the ICD-10 diagnoses of substance dependence and harmful use across a
wide range of substances. Previous research has demonstrated that the SDSS
' DSM-IV dependence scales are reliable and valid indicators of diagnostic
severity. However, the ICD-10 scales have not been psychometrically tested.
This study investigated the test-retest reliability, internal consistency,
diagnostic concordance, and concurrent validity of the SDSS' ICD-10 depend
ence and harmful use scales in 180 (112 male and 68 female) treated substan
ce users. Test-retest reliabilities for the ICD-10 dependence scales ranged
from good to excellent for alcohol, cocaine, heroin, and cannabis, Test-re
test reliabilities for the SDSS' ICD-10 harmful use scales were in the good
range for alcohol, cocaine, and heroin and the poor to fair range for cann
abis. Internal consistency, diagnostic concordance, sind concurrent validit
y results were comparable to the test-retest findings. These results suppor
t the use of the SDSS for assessing the severity of the ICD-10 dependence a
nd harmful use diagnoses. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserve
d.