The Victorian Gambling Screen: reliability and validation in a clinical population.
There is a need to establish reliability and the various forms of validity in all measures in order to feel confident in the use of such tools across a wide diversity of settings. The aim of this study is to describe the reliability and validity of the Victorian Gambling Screen (VGS) and in particular one of the sub-scales (Harm to Self-HS) in a specialist problem gambling treatment service in Adelaide, Australia. Sixty-seven consecutive gamblers were assessed using a previously validated clinical interview and the VGS (Ben-Tovim et al., The Victorian Gambling Screen: project report. Victorian Research Panel, Melbourne, 2001). The internal consistency of the combined VGS scales had a Cronbach's alpha of .85 with the HS scale .89. There was satisfactory evidence of convergent validity which included moderate correlations with another measure of gambling-the South Oaks Gambling Screen. There were also moderate correlations with other measures of psychopathology. Finally, how the VGS may best be used in clinical settings is discussed.
Tolchard
B
B
School of Health and Human Sciences, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK. btolch@essex.ac.uk
Battersby
M W
MW
D000328:Adult; D001315:Australia; D016739:Behavior, Addictive / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D005715:Gambling / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*