Screening current and future diagnosis of psychiatric disorders using the Revised Drug Use Screening Inventory

The revised Drug Use Screening Inventory (DUSI-R) is a valid and reliable self-report questionnaire used for quantifying problems that frequently precede and co-occur with substance abuse. The present investigation determined whether the DUSI-R's items can be aggregated into scales that implicate current and future psychiatric disorders. Scales were derived to screen for attention deficit, conduct, antisocial, anxiety, depression, and substance use disorders in a longitudinally tracked cohort of 328 boys. Evaluations were conducted when the boys were 12-14, 16, 19, and 22 years of age. All of the scales identified youths qualifying for current DSM-IV diagnosis with excellent accuracy. Predictive validity of the scales ranged from good to excellent. Accordingly cut-off scores were determined for each scale for use in practical settings to identify youths who require comprehensive diagnostic evaluation. Thus in addition to its utility for detecting problems that precede and correlate with substance abuse, the DUSI-R is cost-efficient for screening youths for mental disorders.