Drug Use Screening Inventory (DUSI and DUSI-R)

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Drug Use Screening Inventory (DUSI) and (DUSI-R)

Brief description

The Drug Use Screening Inventory (DUSI) and a revised version (DUSI-R) were developed to identify consequences of alcohol and drug involvement. The DUSI is a 149-item multidimensional instrument that quantifies not only involvement with drugs and alcohol, but also associated problems in the areas of mental health and psychosocial domains. The DUSI-R consists of 159 items. One goal of the revised version was to incorporate a "lie scale" to account for denial of problem areas.

Both the original and revised versions cover 10 domains. These are:

substance use
behaviour problems
health status
psychiatric disorder
social competency
family adjustment
school adjustment
peer relations
leisure/recreation.

The most recent study used the revised version to aggregate items into scales that implicate current and future psychiatric disorders, with scales derived for ADHD, conduct, antisocial, anxiety, depression and substance use disorders.

Appropriate target populations

Validated in adolescents 12 to 18 years old. The validation data for the revised tool focused on psychiatric disorders and included boys only. Validation studies have been conducted in Costa Rica with a Spanish version.

Administration options

Formats available

_X_ self-administered (paper-and-pencil)

_X_ self-administered (computer)

___ clinician-administered

Time required

Twenty to 30 minutes

Languages available

_X_ English

___ French

_X_ Other (Spanish)

Accessibility and cost

___ no charge for use

___ use requires permission of test developer

___ use requires special training and/or professional or academic credentials

_X_ fee for use (The developers recommend administration by drug counsellors and other qualified users.)

Where to Access

Ralph Tarter,
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences,
University of Pittsburgh, School of Pharmacy,
711 Salk Hall,
Pittsburgh, PA 15261

Summary of test development data

Quality of reporting

Moderate, based on STARD rating (see Appendix, p.76).

Summary of validity and reliability data

Moderate, largely due to the best diagnostic validation data being confined to boys.

Drug Use Screening Inventory (DUSI and DUSI-R)​