Adolescent responses to the MacAndrew Alcoholism Scale.

Abstract

This study examines the ability of the MacAndrew Alcoholism Scale (MAC) to indicate drug abuse among adolescents. Comparisons of MAC scores were made among four groups of adolescents: (a) 135 unselected high school students (76 female, 59 male); (b) inpatient psychiatry patients of a major teaching hospital (43 female, 47 male), who had no significant history of substance abuse; (c) outpatient psychiatry and psychology clinic patients at the same hospital (43 female, 38 male), who had no significant history of substance abuse; and (d) 100 randomly selected clients (50 female, 50 male) at a residential treatment center for drug-abusing adolescents. Mean MAC score differences among groups were demonstrated for male and female adolescents. Comparisons of differences between pairs of means indicated that MAC mean scores were similar for female high school students and psychiatry patients and significantly higher for substance-abusing female adolescents. For male subjects, mean MAC score differences were demonstrated between substance-abusing adolescents and high school students and between substance abusers and psychiatric outpatients, but mean MAC score differences between substanceabusing and psychiatric inpatient adolescent males were not significant. An attempt to determine optimal MAC cutting scores for all groups resulted in suggested cutting scores > 24 for female subjects and > 26 for male subjects.According to a survey by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (Fishburne, Abelson, & Cisin, 1979), the number of adolescents using drugs and alcohol has nearly doubled over the last decade. An objective means of identifying those adolescents who are substance abusers, when incorporated into the history and interview procedures currently in use, could result in more accurate evaluations and timely interventions.Scores on the MacAndrew Alcoholism Scale (MAC) have successfully differentiated adult male alcoholics from nonalcoholic psychiatric patients (DeGroot & Adamson, 1973;MacAndrew, 1965;Rhodes, 1969;Whisler & Cantor, 1966), young male alcohol-related offenders from psychiatric patients and from college students (MacAndrew, 1979), and adult female alcoholics from nonalcoholic female psychiatric patients (Rich & Davis, 1969;Schwartz & Graham, 1979). There is also evidence that the MAC differentiates heroin addicts and polydrug users from nonaddicts with Requests for reprints should be sent to

The Prediction of Drug Use Among College Students From MMPI, MCMI, and Sensation Seeking Scales

“…The exception to this latter pattern was found in terms of the MAC scale, which was unrelated to alcohol or cocaine use among males. These MAC findings are similar to those reported by Schwartz andGraham (1979) and Wolfson and Erbaugh (1984) in that elevated MAC scales were more sensitive indicators of alcohol abuse among females than among male respondents. Based on the recognition that MAC scores may be more sensitive indicators for females, differential raw score values reflecting lower "cutoff scores for females have been recommended by a variety of MMPI researchers including Graham (1985).…”

“…When the effects of sex and race were analyzed on predictor scales, the results confirm prior findings reported in the literature; that is, males scored higher on both the SSS (Zuckerman, 1979) and MAC (Wolfson & Erbaugh, 1984) than did females, and whites scored higher than blacks on the SSS (Carrol & Zuckerman, 1977;Kaestner, Rosen, & Appel, 1977;Sutker et al, 1978). In relation to the current findings of higher Pd scale scores for black than white subjects, this result is consistent with the MMPI literature on normal samples (e.g., Gynthcr, 1972) and opposite to the pattern often found in studies of hardcore drug addict samples (e.g., Penk, Woodward, Robinowitz, & Hess, 1978).…”

Ability of Substance Abusers to Escape Detection on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A) in a Juvenile Correctional Facility

“…Given the concordance between such behavior and substance abuse, this strategy of capitalizing on delinquency to identify substance abusers may be ineffective in juvenile correctional settings (Rogers & Kelly, 1997). Similarly, a number of investigators (e.g., Basham, 1992;Gottesman & Prescott, 1989;Wolfson & Erbaugh, 1984) have indicated that the MAC scale does not directly assess substance abuse and is most sensitive to antisocial and delinquent behaviors. On the other hand, about half of the ACK items have content that relates directly to substance use, and not antisocial or delinquent behavior in general.…”

“…Effectiveness of the MAC and MAC-R have been reviewed elsewhere (see Stein & Graham, 2001), and generally, results have been mixed at best. Conduct-disordered adolescents appear to achieve high MAC scores regardless of substance abuse status (Wolfson & Erbaugh, 1984). The use of MAC in nonclinical, psychiatric, and substance-abusing adolescents also was studied (Gantner, Graham, & Archer, 1992), and an overall hit rate of approximately 77% was obtained when classifying nonclinical and substance-abusing adolescents.…”

A short scale for predicting drug misuse using selected items from the MMPI

“…In addition to identifying potential abusers of alcohol, the MacAndrew Scale has also been shown to distinguish between abusers and non-users of substances other than alcohol (Klinge, 1983;Lavelle et al, in press) and is currently the best scale available for predicting substance abusing tendencies (Craig, 1986). However, the MacAndrew Scale is unable to distinguish between abusers of alcohol and abusers of other substances (Ktinge, 1983;Wolfson & Erbaugh, 1984;Snyder et al, 1985). This may be because (a) the MacAndrew Scale, in fact, is really a general measure of addictive tendencies; (b) abusers of substances other than alcohol answer enough of the MacAndrew questions in the expected direction to elevate their scores; or (c) drug abusers also use enough alcohol to score highly on the MacAndrew Scale.…”