Screening chart for problem consumption of alcohol and drugs among adolescents (DEP-ADO): Development and psychometric qualities
The chart used to screen problem consumption of alcohol and drugs among adolescents (La Grille de dépistage de la consommation problématique d’alcool et de drogues chez les adolescents/DEP-ADO) was created to meet the needs of drug addiction centres in Quebec. This article reports on the results of two studies on the psychometric qualities of the DEP-ADO. The first demonstrated that the tool was pertinent and appeared to have excellent face validity, for practitioners as well as youth. The second study, involving 673 students from 14 to 17 years of age from three secondary schools in Quebec and 64 youth registered in drug addiction rehabilitation centres, was carried out to evaluate the factor pattern, reliability and the validity of the tool. The results indicated that the psychometric qualities of the DEP-ADO were clearly satisfactory and compare advantageously to those of other screening tools for abusive consumption of psychoactive substances among adolescents (construct validity, internal consistency, test-retest and intermodal execution reliability, concomitant criterion referenced validity). It is interesting that, in addition to an overall factor, the factorial analyses enabled the identification of three factors the clinical meaning of which was clearly identifiable (consumption of alcohol and cannabis, consumption of other drugs, consequences of the consumption of psychoactive substances). While generally confirming the validity and reliability of the original version, the study also enabled improvements to be made to the tool as well as suggesting new ways in which it could be used.