title: Assessing criterion validity of the Simple Screening Instrument for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse (SSI-AOD) in a college population.
abstract: Heavy drinking among college students is widespread, characterized by a unique pattern of heavy episodic drinking, and carries risk of negative consequences both immediate and long term. Because screening to detect high-risk student drinkers is of primary importance to insure early identification and appropriate levels of care, this study evaluated the criterion validity of the SSI-AOD. The SSI-AOD evidenced moderate to strong correlations with alcohol frequency, consumption, and problem indices. Sensitivity and specificity of the SSI-AOD and the AUDIT was determined by ROC analysis utilizing a range of possible cut-off scores using DSM-IV criteria for alcohol abuse as the reference standard. The SSI-AOD had very low sensitivity at the recommended cut-score of 4 and demonstrated poor ability to correctly classify participants overall. The AUDIT demonstrated significantly better performance, correctly classifying approximately 70% of participants using a cut-score of 8.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The University of South Dakota, 414 East Clark St., Vermillion, SD 57069, United States.
authors.forename: Nancy J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Kills Small
authors.forename: Jeffrey S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Simons
authors.forename: Mathias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stricherz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012372:ROC Curve; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology*