title: Measuring drug urges by questionnaire: do not balance scales.
abstract: Measures designed to assess self-reported drug urges are routinely balanced; that is, they contain a relatively equal number of positively and negatively worded items. Using smoking urges as an example, we explored the effect of item wording on responses to self-report items. One hundred sixteen cigarette smokers responded to 32 positively worded statements and their 32 negatively worded counterparts adapted from the Questionnaire of Smoking Urges. For 59% of the paired statements, the negatively worded item was scored higher than the positively worded item. Significant mean differences (item means for 56% of the paired statements were significantly different at the .01 level) and only moderate correlations (mean = .54; range = -.04 to .79) between item pairs were found. Balanced scales may have greater costs than benefits in the assessment of drug urges.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biobehavioral Health, Pennsylvania State University, University Park 16802-6508, USA.
authors.forename: C T
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Sweeney
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Pillitteri
authors.forename: L T
authors.initials: LT
authors.lastname: Kozlowski
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires