Assessment of the alcohol dependence syndrome: a review of self-report screening questionnaires.

The development of the alcohol dependence syndrome and its inclusion in the International Classification of Diseases in January 1979 led to a demand for brief, easy-to-administer screening questionnaires explicitly based on the syndrome. The present review considers some of the conceptual, methodological and psychometric problems faced by the authors of such questionnaires. The five major self-report scales which have been published since 1979 are critically appraised and the usefulness of each scale for different populations and contexts is noted.