Test-Retest Reliability and descriptive analyses of the Modified Important People and Activities (MIPA) Interview

Area of Science:

• Addiction research
• Psychometrics
• Public health

Background:

• The Important People and Activities (IPA) instrument is widely used to assess social networks and support related to alcohol use.
• The IPA was modified to include HIV status, drug of choice, and intravenous drug use within social networks, and to query unprotected sex frequency.
• Reliability of the modified IPA (MIPA) had not been extensively studied.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the 1-week test-retest reliability of the modified Important People and Activities (MIPA) instrument.
• To assess the reliability of network characteristics and social support measures in a clinical population.

Main Methods:

• A substudy of 26 participants was conducted.
• Participants were recruited from a day treatment program and had diagnoses of substance use disorder (SUD) and/or alcohol use disorder (AUD).
• The MIPA was administered at two time points, one week apart.

Main Results:

• The sample comprised 62% female and 39% Latino/a individuals, with drug of choice distributed among heroin, cocaine, and alcohol.
• On average, participants named 7.6 network members (198 total at pretest).
• 152 individuals were identified in both test and retest administrations, indicating network stability.

Conclusions:

• The modified IPA demonstrated acceptable to excellent test-retest reliability for its items, using measures like percent agreement, Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICCs), and kappas.
• Classification of network members' influence on sobriety (positive, negative, neutral) also showed good to excellent reliability.