A Short Alcohol Withdrawal Scale (SAWS): development and psychometric properties

The measurement of alcohol withdrawal symptoms is important for the assessment of the alcohol withdrawal syndrome and for the evaluation of the effectiveness of withdrawal treatment interventions. There continues to be a need for an instrument for the measurement of alcohol withdrawal severity which is short, easy to understand (especially by respondents who may feel anxious, confused or physically ill) and easy to administer (for example, within clinical services with limited time and resources).This paper describes the development and psychometric properties of the 10-item Short Alcohol Withdrawal Scale. The SAWS includes five items which represent psychological symptoms (anxious, confused, restless, miserable, memory problems) which accounted for 47% of the variance. A further five items represent physical symptoms (tremor, nausea, heart pounding, sleep disturbance, sweating) and accounted for 11% of the variance. The procedures leading to the development of the scale are described and results are presented showing that the SAWS has high internal consistency, and good construct and concurrent validity.