Development and Evaluation of a New Self-Rating Test to Assess the Psychological Dependence on Smoking (TAPDS) - Abstract
The interactions among the psychosocial, sensory, and pharmacologic reinforcing mechanisms of nicotine are complex, and not easy to measure. The approach that has dominated the field of tobacco dependence assessment is based on models of physical dependence.
In Mexico the only scale applied is the Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND); therefore there is a need to have a better knowledge of Latin smokers whose psychological motivations have not been properly studied yet.
We developed an initial 30 items self-rating questionnaire based on semantic nets, analysis of “goodbye letters” and smokers interviews with a Likert scale that was given to 200 smokers not enrolled in any cessation treatment, together with the FTND. The collected data was statistically analyzed by using an Exploratory Factorial Analysis (EFA), a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with the Bartlett’s sphericity Test and the Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin Test (KMO) which allowed us to extract 5 items with a factorial charge less than 0.35. The Internal reliability of the resultant 25 items questionnaire was assessed with Cronbach’s alpha, obtaining a value of ?=0.847. The clusters obtained in the questionnaire were: 1) emotional modulator, 2) personality-image, 3) indifference, and 4) social acceptance. A low correlation was found with the FTND (r =0.5). A shorter 8 items version was applied to other 100 smokers and compared with the long (25 items) one, the correlation obtained was r=0.94 (p<0.001).
The Test to Assess the Psychological Dependence on Tobacco Smoking (TAPDS) has potential as a diagnostic tool for individualizing behavioral intervention in treating tobacco smoking