title: Validity and Reliability of the Alcohol, Smoking, and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST) in University Students.
abstract: The Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST), developed by the World Health Organization (WHO), has been used successfully in many countries, but there are few studies of its validity and reliability for the Mexican population. The objective of this study was to determine the psychometric properties of the self-administered ASSIST test in university students in Mexico. This was an ex post facto non-experimental study with 1,176 undergraduate students, the majority women (70.1%) aged 18-23 years (89.5%) and single (87.5%). To estimate concurrent validity, factor analysis and tests of reliability and correlation were carried out between the subscale for alcohol and AUDIT, those for tobacco and the Fagerström Test, and those for marijuana and DAST-20. Adequate reliability coefficients were obtained for ASSIST subscales for tobacco (alpha = 0.83), alcohol (alpha = 0.76), and marijuana (alpha = 0.73). Significant correlations were found only with the AUDIT (r = 0.71) and the alcohol subscale. The best balance of sensitivity and specificity of the alcohol subscale (83.8% and 80%, respectively) and the largest area under the ROC curve (81.9%) was found with a cutoff score of 8. The self-administered version of ASSIST is a valid screening instrument to identify at-risk cases due to substance use in this population.
authors.affiliation: Researcher, Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz National Institute of Psychiatry, Calzada México-Xochimilco 101, Col. San Lorenzo Huipulco, Del. Tlalpan, C.P. 14370, Mexico City. tibsam@imp.edu.mx.
authors.forename: Marcela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tiburcio Sainz
authors.forename: Ma Guadalupe
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Rosete-Mohedano
authors.forename: Guillermina
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Natera Rey
authors.forename: Nora Angélica
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Martínez Vélez
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Carreño García
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pérez Cisneros
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000438:Alcohols; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008800:Mexico; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology; D013334:Students; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014495:Universities; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D000438:Alcohols