Reliability of a questionnaire on substance use among adolescent students, Brazil

• Autor(a) principal: Machado Neto, Adelmo de Souza
• Data de Publicação: 2010
• Outros Autores: Andrade, Tarcisio Matos, Fernandes, Gilênio Borges, Zacharias, Helder Paulo, Carvalho, Fernando Martins, Machado, Ana Paula Souza, Dias, Ana Carmen Costa, Garcia, Ana Carolina Rocha, Santana, Lauro Reis, Rolin, Carlos Eduardo, Sampaio, Cyntia, Ghiraldi, Gisele, Bastos, Francisco Inácio
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista de Saúde Pública
• Texto Completo: https://www.revistas.usp.br/rsp/article/view/32837
• topic: Cuestionario; Adolescente; Conducta del Adolescente; Drogas Ilícitas; Reproducibilidad de Resultados; Questionnaires; Adolescent; Adolescent Behavior; Illicit drugs; Reproducibility of Results; Questionários; Adolescente; Comportamento do Adolescente; Drogas Ilícitas; Reprodutibilidade dos Testes

OBJECTIVE: To analyze reliability of a self-applied questionnaire on substance use and misuse among adolescent students. METHODS: Two cross-sectional studies were carried out for the instrument test-retest. The sample comprised male and female students aged 1119 years from public and private schools (elementary, middle, and high school students) in the city of Salvador, Northeastern Brazil, in 2006. A total of 591 questionnaires were applied in the test and 467 in the retest. Descriptive statistics, the Kappa index, Cronbach's alpha and intraclass correlation were estimated. RESULTS: The prevalence of substance use/misuse was similar in both test and retest. Sociodemographic variables showed a "moderate" to "almost perfect" agreement for the Kappa index, and a "satisfactory" (>;0.75) consistency for Cronbach's alpha and intraclass correlation. The age which psychoactive substances (tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis) were first used and chronological age were similar in both studies. Test-retest reliability was found to be a good indicator of students' age of initiation and their patterns of substance use. CONCLUSIONS: The questionnaire reliability was found to be satisfactory in the population studied.