The addiction severity index (ASI) and the severity of dependence: How large are the associations?

Abstract

Background: Alcohol use is one of the seven domains covered by the addiction severity index (ASI), but this does not include any assessment of severity of dependence.

Aim: To study the relation between alcohol‐dependence severity and the ASI composite scores.

Design: Interviews by trained lay interviewers with 942 patients in the specialized addiction section of the healthcare sector of the treatment system in Stockholm County in 2000–2001.

Participants: Five hundred and seventeen patients with alcohol as their main problem and 408 patients with drugs as their main problem were included, excluding those who had both alcohol and drug problems.

Measurement: The interview included questions necessary to construct ASI composite scores, and questions adapted from the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) instrument to make the diagnosis of alcohol or drug dependence in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, tenth revision (ICD‐10), with six criteria.

Findings: For alcohol use among alcohol‐dependent subjects and for drug use among drug‐dependent subjects, analyses showed a correlation between composite scores and number of dependence items (0.40 and 0.43 respectively). The correlation coefficients for the other six ASI composites scores were less than 0.20.

Conclusion: The domains in the ASI cover important fields in most people's lives, which sometimes may not be related to alcohol or drug use. In future work, the relation between the different domains in the ASI and alcohol and drug dependence should be worked out in a conceptual model.

• Addiction severity index
• alcohol dependence
• treatment