The Alcohol Use Disorder and Associated Disabilities Interview Schedule-IV (AUDADIS-IV): reliability of alcohol consumption, tobacco use, family history of depression and psychiatric diagnostic modules in a general population sample

Background: the purpose of this study was to assess the test-retest reliability of newly introduced or revised modules of the Alcohol Use Disorder and Associated Disabilities Interview Schedule-IV (AUDADIS-IV), including alcohol consumption, tobacco use, family history of depression, and selected DSM-IV axis I and II psychiatric disorders. Methods: kappa and intraclass correlation coefficients were calculated for the AUDADIS-IV modules using a test-retest design among a total of 2657 respondents, in subsets of approximately 400, randomly drawn from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC). Results: reliabilities for alcohol consumption, tobacco use and family history of major depression measures were good to excellent, while reliabilities for selected DSM-IV axis I and II disorders were fair to good. The reliabilities of dimensional symptom scales of DSM-IV axis I and axis II disorders exceeded those of their dichotomous diagnostic counterparts and were generally in the good to excellent range. Conclusions: the high reliability of alcohol consumption, tobacco use, family history of depression and psychiatric disorder modules found in this study suggests that the AUDADIS-IV can be a useful tool in various research settings, particularly in studies of the general population, the target population for which it was designed. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.