Diagnostic Reliability and Validity of the Semi-Structured Assessment for Drug Dependence and Alcoholism (SSADDA) Chinese Version

Bao-Zhu Yang; Liang-Jen Wang; Ming-Chyi Huang; Sheng-Chang Wang; Meng-Chang Tsai; Yu-Chi Huang; Yaira Z Nuñez; Mei-Hing Ng; Henry R Kranzler; Joel Gelernter; Chih-Ken Chen

doi:10.1159/000511606

Diagnostic Reliability and Validity of the Semi-Structured Assessment for Drug Dependence and Alcoholism (SSADDA) Chinese Version

Complex Psychiatry. 2021 Feb;6(3-4):62-67. doi: 10.1159/000511606. Epub 2020 Sep 16.

Authors

Bao-Zhu Yang^{1

2}, Liang-Jen Wang³, Ming-Chyi Huang^{4

5}, Sheng-Chang Wang⁶, Meng-Chang Tsai⁷, Yu-Chi Huang⁷, Yaira Z Nuñez^{1

2}, Mei-Hing Ng⁸, Henry R Kranzler^{9

10}, Joel Gelernter^{1

2

11}, Chih-Ken Chen^{12

13}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.
² VA Connecticut Healthcare System, West Haven, Connecticut, USA.
³ Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and Chang Gung University College of Medicine, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
⁴ Department of Addiction Sciences, Taipei City Psychiatric Center, Taipei City Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁶ Center for Neuropsychiatric Research, National Health Research Institutes, Miaoli, Taiwan.
⁷ Department of Psychiatry, Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, and Chang Gung University College of Medicine, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
⁸ Department of Addiction, Tsaotun Psychiatric Center, Nantou, Taiwan.
⁹ Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
¹⁰ VISN 4 Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center, Crescenz VAMC, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
¹¹ Yale University School of Medicine, Departments of Genetics and Neuroscience, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.
¹² Department of Psychiatry & Community Medicine Research Center, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Keelung, Taiwan.
¹³ Chang Gung University School of Medicine, Taoyuan, Taiwan.

Abstract

The Semi-Structured Assessment for Drug Dependence and Alcoholism (SSADDA) is a polydiagnostic instrument for substance use and psychiatric disorders. We translated the SSADDA English version into Chinese (SSADDA-Chinese) and report here our examination of the diagnostic reliability and validity of DSM-IV substance dependence (SD) diagnoses in a Mandarin-speaking sample in Taiwan. We recruited 125 subjects who underwent an assessment of lifetime SD diagnoses using both the SSADDA-Chinese and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV, Clinician Version (SCID-Chinese). Thirty-one subjects were retested with the SSADDA-Chinese. Cohen's κ statistic, which measures chance-corrected agreement, was used to measure the test-retest reliability and concurrent validity of the individual SD diagnoses. There was a high degree of concordance between SD diagnoses made using the SSADDA-Chinese and the SCID-Chinese, including those for dependence on alcohol (κ = 0.83), ketamine (κ = 0.97), methamphetamine (κ = 0.93), and opioids (κ = 0.95). The test-retest reliability of dependence diagnoses for ketamine (κ = 0.95), methamphetamine (κ = 0.80), and opioids (κ = 1.00) obtained using the SSADDA-Chinese was excellent, while that for alcohol dependence (κ = 0.63) and nicotine dependence (κ = 0.65) was good. We conclude that the SSADDA-Chinese is a reliable and valid instrument for the diagnosis of major SD traits in Mandarin-speaking populations.

Keywords: Chinese Semi-Structured Assessment for Drug Dependence and Alcoholism; Diagnostic instrument; Ketamine dependence; Semi-structured interview; Test-retest reliability.