Screening illicit substance use in college students: The Chinese version of the Drug Abuse Screening Test

Abstract

BackgroundThis study investigated the applicability of the Chinese versions of Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST) to detect illicit substance use in college students. MethodsThe data arising from a campus prevention program, Screening for Illicit Substance Use in College (SISUC), were utilized to explore the psychometrics of 26 items (DAST-26) and 10 items (DAST-10) versions of DAST in college students (CS group). A group of youth with illicit substance use were enrolled as the Illicit Substance Use group (IS group). A set of self-report questionnaires, including the Chinese version of DAST, were administered. ResultsA total of 1214 participants were recruited as the CS group and 208 as the IS group. The Cronbach’s alpha of DAST-26 was 0.74 in CS and 0.90 in IS; while 0.59 in CS and 0.78 in IS for the DAST-10. At a cut-off of 4 for DAST-26, the sensitivity was 87 % and specificity 97 %. As to DAST-10, a cut-off of 2 produced the sensitivity of 86 % and specificity of 96 %. The area under the curve was 0.943 for DAST-26 and 0.940 for DAST-10. The confirmatory factor analyses found a single-factor solution for the DAST-26 and DAST-10. ConclusionsWith comparison to the DAST-26, the shorter version, DAST-10, may offer promise for detecting illicit substance use in college students.