Citation

Bennett ME, Bellack AS, Gearon JS. Addict. Behav. 2006; 31(12): 2249-2267.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 737 West Lombard Street, Suite 551, Baltimore, Maryland, 21201, USA. mbennett@psych.umaryland.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.addbeh.2006.03.012

PMID

16678352

Abstract

This paper provides a description of The Substance Use Event Survey for Severe Mental Illness (SUESS), a brief (20-30 min) interview that assesses clinical issues and domains that are relevant patients with substance use disorders and severe mental illness. First, we discuss the need for a new clinical measure for dual diagnosis patients, as well as our process of creating domains and items and developing the content of the assessment. Second, we provide a first look at the performance of the SUESS in a large sample of dually diagnosed patients from several large scale studies, including how patients responded to the instrument and their ability to complete the items. Third, we present initial reliability data on the SUESS. Finally, we include some initial validity data, including comparison of the self-report of substance use questions to urinalysis results, and verification of the service use information from medical record review. The SUESS appears to be a useful assessment that is tolerated and understood by dual diagnosis patients, and shows good preliminary reliability and validity.

Language: en