title: Craving Typology Questionnaire (CTQ): a scale for alcohol craving in normal controls and alcoholics.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Craving is commonly thought to play a crucial role both in the transition from controlled drinking to alcohol dependence and in the mechanism underlying relapse. However there is no consensus on its definition, and on its correct assessment. Another significant hindrance is that craving is almost certainly a multi-faceted construct. To this respect a three pathway psychobiological model able to differentiate craving into a reward, relief, and obsessive component has been suggested.
  
  
  METHODS
  CTQ was administered to 547 control subjects and to 100 alcohol dependent patients. The dimensional structure of the questionnaire, through the principal component analysis, the reliability and the threshold values were evaluated in both the control and clinical sample.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results showed and confirmed that the CTQ is composed of three dimensions. Cronbach's alpha coefficients suggest that the questionnaire is reliable. Alcohol-dependent subjects had a significantly higher mean score as compared to the normative sample in both Reward, Relief, Obsessive craving. Younger age correlated with higher scores on Reward craving (r=0.38; p<0.001) and males reported significantly higher scores than women on Reward craving (t=4.36; p<0.001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  CTQ showed to be a reliable and valid questionnaire to distinguish a normative sample from pathological individuals. The average scores obtained represent the first normative data available for this questionnaire. Identifying a craving type may represent an important predicting or matching variable for anti-craving psychotropics. More research is needed with respect to CTQ's external validity, i.e. correlations with phenotypic, endophenotypic and genetic indicators of relief, reward and obsessive drinking.
authors: Department of Neuroscience and Imaging, University "G. d'Annunzio", Chieti, Italy. Electronic address: giovanni.martinotti@gmail.com.
authors: Giovanni
authors: G
authors: Martinotti
authors: Marco
authors: M
authors: Di Nicola
authors: Daniela
authors: D
authors: Tedeschi
authors: Antonino
authors: A
authors: Callea
authors: Massimo
authors: M
authors: Di Giannantonio
authors: Luigi
authors: L
authors: Janiri
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000523:psychology*; D057229:Alcoholics / Q000523:psychology*; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000523:psychology*; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires