Objective: This study aims to evaluate the severity of substance use
disorders according to the DSM-5 criteria and to show the reliability and
validity of the Turkish version of the DSM-5 Substance Use Scale that
improved to learn what kind of substances are used.
Methods: In this study,54 in or out-patients who met the criteria for any
substance use disorder according to DSM-5 and who are receiving treatment
in Psychiatry Department of Celal Bayar University Faculty of Medicine
and AMATEM department of Bakırköy Prof. Dr. Mahzar Osman Mental
Health and Neurology Training and Research Hospital, were included.
One hundred volunteers without any mental or physical disease were also
recruited as the control group. Beside the DSM-5 Level 2 substance use
scale, Addiction Profile İndex was used for concurrent validity. Internal
consistency coefficient and item-total correlation analysis were performed
for reliability analysis. ROC Analysis was used in the validity analysis.
Results: Mean age was 26.97±10.20 years in the study group and 39%
of the sample (n=60) were female. 5.6% (n=3) of the patient group were
female and 94.4% (n=51) were male. In the control group, 57% (n=57)
were female and 43% (n=43) were male. Of the patients diagnosed with
substance use disorder (n=54), 88.7% had opiate use disorder, 5.6% had
polysubstance use disorder, 5.6% had other (unknown) substance (synthetic
cannabinoid) use disorder and 1.8% of patients have cannabis use disorder.
The internal consistency of the substance use scale was 0.80 and itemtotal
correlation coefficients were between 0,196- 0,643 (p<0.0001).
Coefficient of correlation analysis with API was calculated as r=0.806
(p<0.0001).
Conclusion: The results showed that DSM-5 Substance Use Scale is a
valid and reliable questionnaire that can be used to measure the progress
of different dimensions of alcohol and substance use.
Keywords: DSM-5, Substance Abuse, Substance-Related Disorders,
Reliability and Validity