Psychometric properties of the Drug Abuse Screening Test DAST 10 in heroin dependent adults and adolescents with drug use disorder

OpenAlex İngilizce

Psychometric properties of the Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST-10) in heroin dependent adults and adolescents with drug use disorderObjective: The psychometric properties of the Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST-10), developed to screen individuals for drug problems, are evaluated in Turkish patients with drug use disorder.Method: Participants included 100 adolescents with drug use disorder in a substance abuse treatment program for adolescents, 123 heroin dependent adults in a residential substance abuse treatment program, and 35 alcohol dependents from the same clinic who did not report a drug abuse problem.Results: The DAST-10 was found to be a psychometrically sound drug abuse screening measure with high convergent validity (r=0.76) when correlation with the Drug Use Disorders Identification Test (DUDIT) was measured and to have a Cronbach's alpha of 0.92.In addition, a single component accounted for 59.35% of total variance, and the DAST-10 had sensitivity and specificity scores of 0.98 and 0.91, respectively, when using the optimal cut-off score of 4. Additionally, the DAST-10 showed good discriminant validity as it significantly differentiated patients with drug use disorder from alcohol dependents.Conclusions: These findings support the DAST as a reliable and valid drug abuse screening instrument that measures a unidimensional construct.Further research is warranted with additional clinical populations and with high risk populations such as those in criminal justice settings.