Psychometric assessment of a self-administered version of the Significant Other Survey

While there are a number of general measures that assess interpersonal and psychological distress experienced by individuals who are in a close relationship with a substance abusing adult, until recently the field has lacked a psychometrically sound, self-administered multidimensional measure explicitly designed to measure the problems of non-substance-abusing adults who are concerned about a substance using loved one. This study examined the psychometric properties of a 54-item, self-administered (SA) version of the Significant Other Survey (SOS), a measure designed to address this gap. The SOS-SA assesses problems across seven problem domains (emotional, relationship, family, financial, physical violence, legal, health). Coefficient alpha estimates (N = 168) were good to excellent for five of the domains, the test-retest reliability (N = 83) across a 7-day time frame was fair to excellent for all seven domains. Similar reliability coefficients were identified regardless of whether the item queried about the problem frequency or perceived severity. There was preliminary support for the construct and discriminant validity of the SOS-SA. The SOS-SA appears to be a promising instrument given that it is brief, requires no specialized training to administer, and has good psychometric properties.