Primary Evaluation of the Diagnostic Accuracy Of the AAS, MAC-R, and APS

The aim of this study was to examine the diagnostic accuracy of the Addiction Acknowledgment Scale (AAS), Addiction Potential Scale (APS), and MacAndrew Alcoholism Scale-Revised (MAC-R), and to determine optimal cutoff scores for these scales. 140 students from university of Tehran and 81 addicted persons seeking rehabilitation (matched for age) were selected for this study. Since these scales were derived from the MMPI-2, which is used to diagnose psychological disorders, a pilot study was conducted to examine their diagnostic accuracy in order to identify psychiatric patients (n=78) and addicted persons (n=81). The AAS had good diagnostic accuracy and the MAC-R was relatively accurate. After the pilot study, we examined the diagnostic accuracy of these Scales. The AAS was the only scale having internal consistency at a satisfactory level. The mean differences of the 3 scales were statically meaningful for the two groups (students and addicted persons). Results of the Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) analysis and sensitivity analysis showed that the AAS was the most accurate among the scales and appeared to offer considerable promise as a substance abuse screening tool. In contrast, the APS had the lowest diagnostic accuracy among the three scales, yielding results that would be of minimal clinical use.