Addictive behaviors in comorbid addiction and mental illness: preliminary results from a self-report questionnaire

: The objective of this study was to pilot a new self-report screening instrument, the addictive behaviors questionnaire (ABQ), which screens for a broad range of impulsive-compulsive behaviors, in a treatment-seeking psychiatric population with comorbid addiction.

: Psychiatric outpatients (N = 94) being treated for comorbid addiction and mental illness were approached consecutively by their therapists to fill out a number of self-report measures, in addition to the ABQ, including the Addiction Severity Index, Toronto Alexithymia Scale, and Reflective Activity Scale. The ABQ was evaluated both as a continuous measure and as a categorical measure using clinically relevant cutoff scores for each behavior. It was tested for internal reliability, test-retest reliability, and correlation with other scales.

: The completion rate for the ABQ was 74%. It demonstrated good internal reliability (continuous measure α = 0.81, categorical measure alpha = 0.82) and good test-retest reliability (continuous r = 0.68, categorical r = 0.76). The total ABQ score positively correlated with alexithymia (continuous r = 0.45, P < 0.001; categorical r = 0.37, P < 0.001) and negatively correlated with reflective activity (continuous r = -0.29, P < 0.01; categorical r = -0.27, P < 0.05). The behaviors that were most commonly endorsed as problematic were overeating, unhealthy relationships, excessive TV watching, and excessive shopping. Based on cutoff scores, 61% of the sample endorsed at least one problematic behavior and 31% endorsed 2 or more behaviors.

: These preliminary results suggest that the ABQ is reliable and easily administered by clinicians treating comorbid addiction in an outpatient setting. Further study is required with larger sample sizes, normative data, and comparable scales to help establish construct validity and cutoff scores.