[Adaptation and validity of the index of severity of addiction in a Costa Rican population group]

In 1988 the Institute on Alcoholism and Drug Dependency in San José, Costa Rica, performed a study aimed at adapting the Index of Severity of Addiction to Costa Rica and determining the Index's effectiveness by measuring its sensitivity and specificity. The scale covered seven evaluation areas: state of health, work/financial situation, family/social relations situation, legal situation, use of alcohol, use of drugs, and psychological state. One hundred male subjects between 18 and 64 years of age were interviewed and divided into one group of cases (n = 51) and another of controls (n = 49). The information obtained was coded and analyzed by means of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, and the X2 test was applied together with the Yates correction in order to compare the proportions. A tendency toward higher indexes of severity in the cases was observed. The most affected areas in this group were, in order of intensity, the use of alcohol, family/social relations situation, work situation, and psychological state, with a highly significant correlation of respective indexes of severity (P less than 0.001). The study demonstrated the validity of the instrument in differentiating the affected and the unaffected populations and in measuring both the severity of the problems resulting from addiction and the need for treatment.