Psychometric evaluation of the Drinking Patterns Questionnaire: A measure of high-risk drinking situations

Abstract

Purpose-The Drinking Patterns Questionnaire (DPQ) is a self-report instrument designed to identify high-risk (HR) drinking situations. While prior investigation has established the preliminary psychometric properties of the DPQ, additional research is needed. The current study evaluated the construct validity of the Work-Related, Financial, Parents, and Children subscales of the DPQ as well as the internal consistency of all subscales.Method-One hundred and thirty-four alcohol-dependent inpatients completed a questionnaire packet containing the DPQ, a demographics questionnaire, four measures used to evaluate the convergent validity of DPQ subscales, and three measures of alcohol use disorder symptoms.Results-DPQ subscales evidenced adequate to strong internal consistency (coeffficient alphas of .691 to .921). Significant Pearson's r correlations were found between scores on the WorkRelated, Financial, and Children subscales and those on their corresponding correlate measures. Findings for the validity of the Parents subscale were mixed.Conclusion-Study results provide support for the construct validity for the Work-Related, Financial, and Children subscales and indicate that all DPQ subscales exhibit solid internal consistency.

Treating Alcohol Problems With Couple Therapy

“…To identify specific antecedents to drinking, Terri recorded drinking and drinking urges throughout treatment. In addition, she completed the Drinking Patterns Questionnaire (DPQ: Menges, McCrady, Epstein, & Beem, ), a self‐report questionnaire listing a variety of potential drinking antecedents. Steve also filled out the same measure to report his view of Terri's drinking.…”

Neurophysiological markers of cue reactivity and inhibition subtend a three-month period of complete alcohol abstinence

“…Nevertheless, we believe that the present preliminary data could contribute to finding new ways to implement brain indications related to cognitive functioning as an add-on tool in the conventional management of alcohol-dependent patients by promoting, for instance, the replication of such results through multicenter studies (Campanella, 2016;Campanella et al, 2019). Indeed, the current tools used for risk assessment suffer from the main problem that several factors that differ in nature need to be taken into account to predict relapse, e.g., the occurrence of negative life events, the motivation for change, coping resources, craving experiences and mood status (Miller et al, 1996), the identification of high-risk drinking situations (Menges et al, 2008), the need to identify individual bestsuited treatments (Wietkiewitz and Marlatt, 2007), implicit attitudes (approach, avoidance) towards alcohol (Stacy and Wiers, 2010), or even feelings of shame (Randles and Tracy, 2013). Although brain imaging studies can index functional neural changes accompanying abstinence in groups of patients by, for instance, using functional magnetic resonance imaging studies (e.g., Grusser et al, 2004), in a clinical context it will always be difficult to implement an experimental protocol that can take all these variables into account and to apply it to a singular patient.…”