Diagnostic utility of craving in predicting nicotine dependence: impact of craving content and item stability.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Craving is useful in the diagnosis of drug dependence, but it is unclear how various items used to assess craving might influence the diagnostic performance of craving measures. This study determined the diagnostic performance of individual items and item subgroups of the 32-item Questionnaire on Smoking Urges (QSU) as a function of item wording, level of craving intensity, and item stability.

Methods

Nondaily and daily smokers (n = 222) completed the QSU on 6 separate occasions, and item responses were averaged across the administrations. Nicotine dependence was assessed with the Wisconsin Inventory of Smoking Dependence Motives. The discriminative performance of the QSU items was evaluated with receiver-operating characteristic curves and area under the curve

SUBMITTER: Germeroth LJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3819973 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature