French Version of the Addiction Severity Index (5th Edition): Validity and Reliability among Swiss Opiate-Dependent Patients

Objective: The aim of the study was to validate a French adaptation of the 5th version of the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) instrument in a Swiss sample of illicit drug users. Participants and Setting: The participants in the study were 54 French-speaking dependent patients, most of them with opiates as the drug of first choice. Procedure: Analyses of internal consistency ( convergent and discriminant validity) and reliability, including measures of test-retest and inter-observer correlations, were conducted. Results: Besides good applicability of the test, the results on composite scores (CSs) indicate comparable results to those obtained in a sample of American opiate-dependent patients. Across the seven dimensions of the ASI, Cronbach's alpha ranged from 0.42 to 0.76, test-retest correlations coefficients ranged from 0.48 to 0.98, while for CSs, inter-observer correlations ranged from 0.76 to 0.99. Conclusions: Despite several limitations, the French version of the ASI presents acceptable criteria of applicability, validity and reliability in a sample of drug-dependent patients. Copyright (C) 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel.