Self-reported drinking and alcohol-related problems among early adolescents: dimensionality and validity over 24 months.
OBJECTIVE
Researchers rely on adolescents' self-reports of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems, despite little evidence concerning their validity. We assessed the reliability and validity of adolescents' self-reports, employing collateral validation and focusing on the understudied transitional years of early adolescence.


METHODS
Subjects were 214 boys and 247 girls who participated in school-wide surveys that assessed drinking, drunkenness and alcohol-related problems each year for 3 years. These measures were validated by collateral (peer) reports and by separate, 7-day drinking calenders. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were also assessed.


RESULTS
Results replicated findings with older adolescents that drinking/drunkenness and alcohol-related problems fall on two partially overlapping dimensions. Scales assessing each dimension had moderate to high internal consistency and high test-retest stability. Correlations with collateral reports were relatively strong for the drinking/drunkenness scale, moderate for a dichotomous variable reflecting the presence or absence of alcohol-related problems, and more modest for the alcohol-related problems scale. Correlations with diary reports of drinking behavior were strong for drinking/drunkenness. Results generally replicated across gender and over time.


CONCLUSIONS
Researchers can have some confidence in the reliability and validity of early adolescents' survey self-reports, particularly of alcohol consumption (alcohol-related problems occurred with low base rates, perhaps limiting validity coefficients). Because drinking/drunkenness and alcohol-related problems shared 30% of their variance, factors other than consumption (e.g., personality factors) apparently influenced the experience of alcohol-related problems.
Smith
G T
GT
Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington 40506-0044, USA.
McCarthy
D M
DM
Goldman
M S
MS
D000293:Adolescent; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D000435:Alcoholic Intoxication / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D015982:Bias; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008824:Michigan / Q000453:epidemiology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012650:Self Disclosure; D012940:Social Problems / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013383:Suburban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data