Development of problem severity scales for the assessment of adolescent alcohol and drug abuse

The Chemical Dependency Adolescent Assessment Project was established to develop a standardized assessment battery to provide a multidimensional description of problems associated with alcohol and drug use by adolescents that can assist in the identification, referral, and treatment of adolescent alcohol and drug abuse. This paper provides an overview of the development of the portion of the assessment battery that addresses problem severity of alcohol and drug abuse. Scale construction procedures, scale characteristics, and relationships of scales with external variables are discussed.