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The Yale Craving Scale: Development and psychometric properties.

ABSTRACT: The current study presents a psychometric evaluation of the Yale Craving Scale (YCS), a novel measure of craving for cigarettes and alcohol, respectively. The YCS is the first craving measure to use a generalized Labeled Magnitude Scale (gLMS) as the scoring format, which facilitates between-group comparisons of subjective craving and eliminates ceiling effects by assessing the full range of imaginable sensation intensities.Psychometric evaluations of the YCS for use with cigarettes (YCS Smoking) and alcohol (YCS Drinking) included assessments of latent factor structure, internal consistency, ceiling effects, and test-criterion relationships. Study samples included 493 treatment-seeking smokers and 213 heavy drinkers.Factor analyses of the 5-item YCS Smoking and Drinking scores confirmed a 1-factor scale. The YCS Smoking and Drinking scores evidenced: (1) good internal consistency, (2) scalar measurement invariance within several subgroups (e.g., smoking/drinking status; nicotine/alcohol dependence), (3) convergent relationships with extant craving measures, and (4) concurrent relationships with smoking/drinking outcomes.These results suggest that the YCS represents a psychometrically sound scale for assessing smoking and drinking urges in dependent populations.

SUBMITTER: Rojewski AM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4834029 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Yale Craving Scale: Development and psychometric properties.

Rojewski Alana M AM Morean Meghan E ME Toll Benjamin A BA McKee Sherry A SA Krishnan-Sarin Suchitra S Green Barry G BG Bartoshuk Linda M LM O'Malley Stephanie S SS

Drug and alcohol dependence 20150706

<h4>Introduction</h4>The current study presents a psychometric evaluation of the Yale Craving Scale (YCS), a novel measure of craving for cigarettes and alcohol, respectively. The YCS is the first craving measure to use a generalized Labeled Magnitude Scale (gLMS) as the scoring format, which facilitates between-group comparisons of subjective craving and eliminates ceiling effects by assessing the full range of imaginable sensation intensities.<h4>Methods</h4>Psychometric evaluations of the YCS ...[more]

PMID: 26183404

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Project description:BackgroundThe Penn Alcohol Craving Scale (PACS) is an instrument with good psychometric properties that is widely used to assess alcohol craving. Based on the assumption that the experience of craving is independent of substance type, the Polish version of the PACS was modified to measure drug craving, thus creating the Penn Drug Craving Scale (PDCS). The analyses presented in the paper aim to verify the hypothesis that the PDCS has a unidimensional structure, is highly reliable and features longitudinal measurement invariance.MethodsThe research was conducted in 14 inpatient and 13 outpatient randomly selected facilities that provide psychosocial therapy to people with substance use disorder (SUD) in Poland, during June 2018 -July 2019. The data used for the analyses came from 282 patients diagnosed on the basis of ICD-10 criteria (F11.2-F19.2). The paper presents analyses with the application of: [1] confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) conducted on the basis of a polychoric correlation matrix and the WLSMV estimator; [2] a reliability estimate using Cronbach's alpha and coefficient omega; [3] verification of longitudinal measurement invariance between the beginning and end of therapy; [4] evaluation of criterion validity; [5] normalisation of the raw scores.ResultsThe CFA results confirmed a unidimensional PDCS structure (RMSEA = 0.047, 95% CI: 0.000-0.103; CFI = 0.999; TLI = 0.999) and a high reliability of the scale (ω = 0.93). Moreover, a strict longitudinal measurement invariance of the instrument was confirmed.ConclusionsAccurate assessment of craving is possible only with valid and reliable instruments. Therefore, the psychometric properties of the PDCS were verified based on the latest statistical approaches. The scale is a valid and highly reliable tool featuring longitudinal measurement invariance and can be usefully used for research and clinical purposes. Thus, the Polish version of the PACS has been modified and successfully applied to the population of people with SUD.

Project description:The Yale Global Tic Severity Scale (YGTSS) is a clinician-rated instrument considered as the gold standard for assessing tics in patients with Tourette's Syndrome and other tic disorders. Previous psychometric investigations of the YGTSS exhibit different limitations such as small sample sizes and insufficient methods. To overcome these shortcomings, we used a subsample of the large-scale "European Multicentre Tics in Children Study" (EMTICS) including 706 children and adolescents with a chronic tic disorder and investigated convergent, discriminant and factorial validity, as well as internal consistency of the YGTSS. Our results confirm acceptable convergent and good to very good discriminant validity, respectively, indicated by a sufficiently high correlation of the YGTSS total tic score with the Clinical Global Impression Scale for tics (r s = 0.65) and only low to medium correlations with clinical severity ratings of attention deficit/hyperactivity symptoms (r s = 0.24), obsessive-compulsive symptoms (r s = 27) as well as internalizing symptoms (r s = 0.27). Internal consistency was found to be acceptable (Ω = 0.58 for YGTSS total tic score). A confirmatory factor analysis supports the concept of the two factors "motor tics" and "phonic tics," but still demonstrated just a marginal model fit (root mean square error of approximation = 0.09 [0.08; 0.10], comparative fit index = 0.90, and Tucker Lewis index = 0.87). A subsequent analysis of local misspecifications revealed correlated measurement errors, suggesting opportunities for improvement regarding the item wording. In conclusion, our results indicate acceptable psychometric quality of the YGTSS. However, taking the wide use and importance of the YGTSS into account, our results suggest the need for further investigations and improvements of the YGTSS. In addition, our results show limitations of the global severity score as a sum score indicating that the separate use of the total tic score and the impairment rating is more beneficial.

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The Yale Craving Scale: Development and psychometric properties.

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The Yale Craving Scale: Development and psychometric properties.

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