The measurement of substance use disapproval: different information capacity of disapproval of licit and illicit psychoactive substances along a spectrum of substance use disapproval.

Objectives

Approval/disapproval of substance use behavior might have a role in the development and persistence of substance use. However, less is known about the measurement function of disapproval of using different types of psychoactive substances. By using item response analyses, the present study aimed to examine the latent structure as well as item-level measurement properties of the construct of substance use disapproval.

Methods

Nationally representative adult samples derived from the National Survey on Addiction Problems in Hungary from 2015 (N=2274) and 2019 (N=1385) were used in the present study. Dichotomous items measured the disapproval of eleven forms of substance use, such as smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol and different forms of illicit drug use.

Results

A unidimensional measurement model of substance use disapproval was supported. Item response analyses indicated that disapproval of alcohol use and cigarette smoking had moderate discrimination capacity and were located at moderately low-moderately high levels of the substance use disapproval continuum, whereas illicit substance use forms had high-very high discrimination capacities and were ranged at low-very low levels of the disapproval spectrum. Disapproval of experimenting with heroin, ecstasy and designer stimulants had the highest information capacity in 2015, whereas in 2019 disapproval of experimenting with synthetic cannabinoids and experimenting with and using occasionally cannabis were the most informative.

Conclusions

Less permissive attitudes were shown for all forms of illicit drug use compared to alcohol and cigarette use. Discrimination and difficulty levels of disapproval of substance use might be associated with legal status of psychoactive substances. (Neuropsychopharmacol Hung 2022; 24(2): 85–94)