Adolescent substance use assessment: concordance between tools using self-administered and interview formats

Area of Science:

• Adolescent Health
• Psychiatry
• Substance Use Research

Background:

• Accurate assessment of adolescent substance use is crucial for effective intervention.
• Self-report methods, including questionnaires and interviews, are common but may yield different results.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the agreement between self-administered questionnaires and face-to-face interviews for assessing adolescent substance use frequency.
• To compare reported substance use frequencies across different self-report formats.

Main Methods:

• 108 adolescents (aged 11-19) referred for chemical dependence assessment completed a self-administered questionnaire (Personal Experience Inventory) and a face-to-face interview (Drug Use History Interview).
• Substance use frequencies for alcohol and marijuana were assessed for the 3 and 12 months preceding baseline.
• Urine samples were collected to validate recent substance use.

Main Results:

• Strong correlations were found between self-administered and interviewer-administered formats for alcohol (average r = 0.72) and marijuana (average r = 0.81) use frequencies.
• Adolescents reported higher frequencies of alcohol and marijuana use during the interview-administered protocol compared to the self-administered format.

Conclusions:

• While both methods show good agreement for substance use frequencies, interview formats may elicit higher self-reported use.
• Findings highlight the importance of considering the chosen assessment method when interpreting adolescent substance use data.