Validating a Hazardous Drinking Index in a Sample of Sexual Minority Women: Reliability, Validity, and Predictive Accuracy. (2nd January 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Riley, Barth B.; Hughes, Tonda L.; Wilsnack, Sharon C.; Johnson, Timothy P.; Benson, Perry; Aranda, Frances
• Is Part Of: Substance use & misuse. Volume 52:Number 1(2017)
• Page Start: 43
• Page End: 51
• Publication Date: 2017-01-02
• Subjects: Hazardous drinking -- sexual minority women -- alcohol abuse -- alcohol dependence; Narcotic habit -- Periodicals; Alcoholism -- Periodicals; Substance abuse -- Periodicals; Behavior, Addictive -- Periodicals; Sustance-Related Disorders -- Periodicals; 362.2905
• DOI: 10.1080/10826084.2016.1214150
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1082-6084

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Background : Although sexual minority women (SMW) are at increased risk of hazardous drinking (HD), efforts to validate HD measures have yet to focus on this population. Objectives : Validation of a 13-item Hazardous Drinking Index (HDI) in a large sample of SMW. Methods : Data were from 700 adult SMW (age 18-82) enrolled in the Chicago Health and Life Experiences of Women study. Criterion measures included counts of depressive symptoms and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, average daily and 30-day ethanol consumption, risky sexual behavior, and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) measures of alcohol abuse/dependence. Analyses included assessment of internal consistency, construction of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves to predict alcohol abuse/dependence, and correlations between HDI and criterion measures. We compared the psychometric properties (diagnostic accuracy and correlates of hazardous drinking) of the HDI to the commonly used CAGE instrument. Results : KR-20 reliability for the HDI was 0.80, compared to 0.74 for the CAGE. Predictive accuracy, as measured by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for alcohol abuse/dependence, was HDI: 0.89; CAGE: 0.84. The HDI evidenced the best predictive efficacy and tradeoff between sensitivity and specificity. Results supported the concurrent validity of the HDI measure . Conclusions : The Hazardous Drinking Index is a reliable and valid measure of hazardous drinking for sexual minority women.