Examining the performance of the brief addiction monitor.

The Center for Excellence in Drug Abuse Treatment and Education (Center for Excellence in Substance Abuse Treatment and Education (CESATE; 2010). Brief Addiction Monitor: Manual of Operations. Philadelphia, PA) recently suggested that Veterans Affairs' (VA) addictions treatment programs, in order to encourage measurement based care, begin using a new measure of substance abuse, the Brief Addictions Monitor (BAM). To date, only one study Caccolia et al, 2013. Development and initial evaluation of the Brief Addiction Monitor (BAM). Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 44, 256-63. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsat.2012.07.013) has examined the psychometric properties of a version of this instrument. However, this study did not use the version of the BAM currently available to most VA providers via the mental health assistant software; rather, the authors reported the properties of a BAM where most of the items had continuous (or near continuous) response options. The current study seeks to provide data on the version of the BAM which uses 5 point Likert scale response options for its questions, the version available on the mental health assistant software. Based on data from more than 700 veterans enrolled in out-patient (OP) and in-patient (IP) addictions treatment programs, this study examined the factor structure, reliability, and validity of this version of the BAM. Across both groups, results suggested that the BAM lacked a reliable factor structure, in contrast to the findings from the earlier study. However, a single scale, composed of a minority of items on the BAM, showed promise. A minority of the items (five) provided valid information across both OP and IP samples when applied individually, as indicated by convergent and divergent validity comparisons with other measures of functioning; tracking changes in functioning over the course of treatment; and correlating with changes in convergent and divergent validity measures. This partially supported the CESATE (CESATE; 2010). Brief Addiction Monitor: Manual of Operations. Philadelphia, PA) call to use the individual BAM items. Overall, results suggested that changing the structure of the response options may have had a negative impact on the psychometric properties of the BAM.