Probing smoking craving with a multidimensional approach: validation of the 12-item French-language version of the Questionnaire on Smoking Urges

Abstract

Background

The current study examined the psychometric properties of the 12-item French-language version of the Questionnaire on Smoking Urges (QSU-12), a widely used multidimensional measure of cigarette craving.

Methods

Daily smokers (n=230) completed the QSU-12, the Fägerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence, and items about addiction-related symptoms. Additional participants (n=40) completed the QSU-12 and the Fägerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence and were assessed for expired carbon monoxide.

Results

Consistent with studies validating the English version of the scale, confirmatory factor analyses supported a two-factor solution in the French version of the scale. Good scale and subscales reliabilities were observed, and convergent validity was evidenced through relationships with dependence and addiction-related symptoms.

Conclusion

The French-language version of the QSU-12 is an adequate instrument to assess the multidimensional construct of craving in both research and clinical practice.

Keywords:

• tobacco
• smoking
• nicotine
• craving
• measurement model
• psychometrics
• confirmatory factor analyses
• carbon monoxide
• addiction

Supplementary material

Table S1 QSU-12 items

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Arnaud Carré and all the members of the Groupe de Réflexion en Psychopathologie Cognitive (GREPACO) for their help in disseminating the study protocol. We would also like to thank Melissa Morales-Duarte for her help in data collection and the members of the Laboratory for Experimental Psychopathology for their useful comments on a preliminary draft of the article.

Disclosure

This work has been partly supported by Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium) and by a grant (grant number FC 78142) from the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (awarded to Alexandre Heeren). These funding bodies did not exert any editorial direction or censorship on any part of this article. All authors report no competing financial interests or potential conflicts of interest, and no financial relationships with commercial interests. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.