Two scales to evaluate cocaine craving.

The cocaine craving questionnaire-brief (CCQ-Brief English) asks cocaine users to report their level of craving now. We constructed two brief scales of cocaine craving in a sample of 107 Spanish-speaking natives in treatment for cocaine abuse or dependence: the CCQ-Brief(Spanish) and the pictographic assessment of desire (PAD), which relies less on language. Principal component analyses yielded a one-component solution for the CCQ-Brief, explaining between 62% and 68% of the sample variability. Cronbach's alpha ranged from .92 to .94. The CCQ-Brief and the PAD were strongly correlated; effect sizes ranged from .42 to .68 in separate trials. Laboratory cue-exposure results showed that in both scales craving was higher upon presentation of cocaine-related rather than neutral pictorial stimuli. The CCQ-Brief and PAD are potentially valuable scales for evaluating cocaine craving.