Psychiatry Investig.  2024 Feb;21(2):159-164. 10.30773/pi.2022.0217.

Validation of the Chinese Version of Penn Alcohol Craving Scale for Patients With Alcohol Use Disorder

• Ko YY
• Fang SC
• Huang WC
• Huang MC
• Chang HM

• KMID: 2552816
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.30773/pi.2022.0217

Abstract

Objective
The Penn Alcohol Craving Scale (PACS) is a five-item, single-dimension questionnaire that is used to measure a patient’s alcohol craving. We sought to develop the Chinese version of the PACS (PACS-C) and assess its reliability and validity.
Methods
A total of 160 Taiwanese patients with alcohol use disorder were enrolled in this study. The internal consistency and concurrent validity of the PASC-C with the visual analogue scale (VAS) for craving, the Yale–Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale for heavy drinking (YBOCS-hd), and the Severity of Alcohol Dependence Questionnaire (SADQ) were assessed. The test–retest reliability of the PASC-C was evaluated 1 day after the baseline measurements. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to examine the psychometric properties of the PACS-C.
Results
The PACS-C exhibited good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α=0.95) and test–retest reliability (r=0.97). This scale showed high correlations with the VAS (r=0.81) and YBOCS-hd (r=0.81 and 0.79 for the obsession and compulsion subscales, respectively), and moderate correlation with the SADQ-C (r=0.47). Furthermore, CFA results revealed that the PACS-C had good fit indices under various models.
Conclusion
The PACS-C appears to be a reliable and valid tool for assessing alcohol craving in patients with alcohol use disorder in Taiwan.

Keyword

Craving; Alcohol use disorder; Penn alcohol craving scale