Degree to which it has been tried to exert control over alcohol use; Degree of success to control drinking and beliefs of the subject in his/her ability to control his/her drinking in the future.

This scale consists of three parts: the first (5 questions) measures the extent to which the subject has tried to exert control over alcohol use in the last 6 months. The second part (10 questions) measures the degree of success to control his/her alcohol use over the past 6 months and the third part (10 questions) refers to the subject's beliefs in his/her ability to control his/her drinking in the future . In total there are 25 questions.

Impaired Control Scale (ICS) has a Cronbach's alpha of 0.89 for Part 1, 0.94 for part 2 and 0.95 for Part 3 and a correlation of 0.77, 0.94 and 0.96 in parts 1, 2 and 3 respectively. No correlation between the three parts of the ICS and SADQ (Severity of Alcohol Dependence Scale) and AUDIT was found. A cumulative variance of 42,852% was obtained. No statistically significant external validity criterion for the ICS for the studied population was found. It is suggested to replicate the study with other populations.

Self-administered, although it is suggested that an interviewer (with clinical experience in treating alcohol-related problems) is present if some clarification is required.

Each question is scored from 0 to 5.

Heather N, Tebbutt JS, Mattick RP, Zamir R. Development of a Scale for Measuring Impaired Control over Alcohol use: A Preliminary Report. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 54: 700-709, 1993.