The Psychometric Properties of the Drug Abuse Screening Test

Substance abuse is a critical problem in most countries, especially in developing ones. Earlydetection is the pre-requisite of early control, for which reliable and valid tools are required. In the presentstudy, we aimed at measuring the psychometric properties of the 10-item Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST-10)in Iranian individuals.

After translation and back-translation of the questionnaire, 244 adults were recruited from TehranMegacity, Iran, and completed the questionnaires. Participants were recruited by a multistage randomizedcluster sampling method. Reliability was determined by Cronbach’s alpha. Also, construct validity wasevaluated using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA).

The internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha coefficients for the total score of the Persianversion of DAST-10 was 0.93. EFA evoked only one factor for DAST-10. The CFA for 1-factor models forDAST-10 indicated an acceptable fit for the proposed models.

The results prove desirable reliability and validity of the Persian version of the DAST which canbe utilized as a screening instrument for drug abuse among Iranian adults.