Measuring Drug Abuse: The Development of the Chinese Drug Involvement Scale in Hong Kong

Abstract

The development of the Chinese Drug Involvement Scale for use in Chinese communities.Method: A battery of scales, including the Chinese Drug Involvement Scale and threemental health measures, were administered to 152 students of 13 to 18 years of age. Reliabilityand validity analyses were performed. The refined version was then cross-validated on a groupof identified drug abusers (N = 77). Results: The final version of the Chinese Drug InvolvementScale is a 22-item scale. Validation results demonstrate that the Chinese Drug Involvement Scalehas high reliability and a satisfactory level of validity. Conclusion: The Chinese Drug InvolvementScale is a global assessment of an individual's beliefs and values relating to drug use, apartfrom actual drug abuse behavior. The scale will be particularly useful for periodic assessmentsor outcome evaluation in treatment programs.