Validation of the sixth version of the Addiction Severity Index (ASI-6) for patients in a clinical population of Colombia.

Introduction: The Addiction Severity Index (ASI-6) is recommended for identifying the needs of addicted patients and assessing the effectiveness of a program. Objective: To develop a version of the ASI-6 suitable for Colombia and trans-linguistically and trans-culturally equivalent to the original. Additionally, this study also sought to assess the reliability and construct validity of the resulting version. Materials and methods: The study included Colombian adults with harmful substance use or dependence syndrome who were being treated at drug addiction centers. The original English version underwent a cultural adaptation process. The scale was translated and back-translated to assess its equivalence. Reliability was assessed in terms of internal consistency and interrater and test-retest reliability. The convergent aspect of the construct validity was assessed via the correlation of the instrument with other scales measuring similar underlying constructs. Results: We found an adequate internal consistency for the subscales of the ASI-6 for its Cronbach´s alpha coefficient was above 0.7 with the exception of the social problems subscale (α=0.66). In addition, interrater and test-retest reliability was high, since their intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was above 0.7 for all the subscales. Construct validity was demonstrated by a Spearman correlation coefficient ranging from 0.53 to 0.88 between the ASI-6 subscales and other similar scales. Conclusion: The version of the ASI-6 adapted to the Colombian context was found to have good reliability and validity, thus it can be introduced into clinical practice. However, additional studies are needed to evaluate its responsiveness and structural validity.