Psychometric properties of the Brazilian version of the Personal Experience Screening Questionnaire.

Introduction:: The Personal Experience Screening Questionnaire (PESQ) is an instrument devised for assessing the magnitude of drug misuse among adolescents. However, its psychometric properties have not been evaluated in adolescent samples outside the United States.

Objective:: To assess the internal reliability and validity of the Brazilian version of the PESQ.

Validation of a short version of the revised drug use screening inventory in a Brazilian sample of adolescents.

The revised Drug Use Screening Inventory (DUSI-R) is a self-report questionnaire designed to quantify the severity of problems that are commonly associated with consumption of alcohol and other drugs. This study extends research conducted on the US population to determine whether the DUSI-R's substance abuse scale discriminates Brazilian youths in treatment (n = 41) from a general population sample (n = 43). A Portuguese translation of the substance abuse scale was administered in paper and pencil format at the time of intake into treatment and to randomly selected youths in school.

Psychiatric comorbidity related to alcohol use among adolescents.

Introduction: Alcohol use is apparently related to high prevalences of psychiatric comorbidity, although scientific studies focusing the problem among adolescents are still lacking.

Objective: To evaluate the performance of adolescents with different patterns of alcohol use on screening instruments for psychiatric disorders.

Method: Forty-one adolescents seeking assistance for alcohol-related problems were compared to a nonclinical sample of 43 adolescents.