The Short Understanding of Substance Abuse Scale (SUSS)

Instrument Description:

The purpose of the Short Understanding of Substance Abuse Scale is to measure staff and patient beliefs about substance abuse. The SUSS is a modification of the Understanding of Alcoholism Scale (UAS) created by Drs. Theresa Moyers and William Miller. The main modifications made were to make the SUSS applicable to both alcoholism and drug addiction by re-wording some of the UAS items, and to make the SUSS shorter and therefore easier to administer (19 items versus 41 items in the UAS). This instrument is also available in Swedish.

Instrument Development and Research Contact: Keith Humphreys, Ph.D.

Instrument and Scoring Instruction Availability:

Scale

Swedish Version

Scoring Instructions

References:

Reliability, validity and normative data for the SUSS are presented in the following article:

Moggi, F., Giovanoli, A., Sutter, M., & Humphreys, K. (2005). Validity and reliability of the German version of the short understanding of substance abuse scale. European Addiction Research, 11, 172-179.

Humphreys, K., Greenbaum, M. A., Noke, J. M., & Finney, J. W. (1996). Reliability, validity, and normative data for a short version of the understanding of alcoholism scale. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 10, 38-44.

Psychometric data on the original UAS is available in:

Moyers, T. B. (1991). Therapists' conceptualizations of alcoholism: Implications for treatment decisions. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of New Mexico.

Moyers, T. B., & Miller, W. R. (1993). Therapist conceptualizations of alcoholism: Measurement and implications for treatment decisions. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 7, 238-245.