Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test

ASSIST

Screening

Case detection

Illegal Drugs

Substance use

Alcohol use and withdrawal

2002

World Health Organization (WHO)

Free access: www.who.int/substance_abuse/activities/assist/en/?

http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/activities/assist/en/‎

Hish scores in the Fagerström test (6 or more) indicate a high degree of dependence; on the contrary, low scores do not necessarily indicate a low degree of dependence.

It demonstrated the validity of the test concurrent, predictive and discriminatory manner, and also included a series of cutoff scores for 'low risk', 'moderate' and 'high' in a study conducted in 2000 and in 2002 in Australia , Brazil, the United States, India, UK, Thailand and Zimbabwe.

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It must be administered by a health care professional. Paper and pencil questionnaire. The questionnaire consists of eight questions and it takes about 5 to 10 minutes to fill it.

The ASSIST questionnaire indicates the risk score for each substance users report having consumed. After the score is determined a conversation (brief intervention) about the substance is initiated with the user. The score allows classifying individuals by level of risk for each substance 'low', 'moderate' or 'high', and in each case the most appropriate intervention ( 'no treatment' , 'short intervention 'or' referral to a specialised service for evaluation and treatment 'respectively) is determined. The final score is obtained by the sum of the scores of questions 2 to 7. The results of wuestion 8 do not count toward the overall score, but injecting use (P8) is an indicator of high risk .

It can be used in a variety of cultures to detect the use of tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, stimulants, inhalants, sedatives, hallucinogens, opiates and other drugs.

Adults

WHO ASSIST Working Group (2002) The Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST): Development, Reliability and Feasibility. Addiction, 97: 1183-1194.