Craving in cocaine dependence

Craving is a relevant concept in the area of drug dependence, but its utility in the treatment needs more investigation. The evaluation of craving also presents difficulties. The assessment of craving was realized with analogical scales at the present time the questionnaires to assess craving are uni- or multi-dimensional. In this study, with cocaine dependence subjects in treatment, we present the elaboration of a short scale to evaluate craving in 115 persons and its discriminative utility in function of diverse sociodemographic variables and characteristics of consumption. The results indicate that the present questionnaire, the Craving Scale, consisting of 10 items, presents a single factorial structure and an appropriate reliability, of 0.85. When comparing the punctuation in this scale in cocaine dependents, in function of the sociodemographic variables and characteristics of consumption, the most relevant differences were related to the main route of administration and the time of abstinence in the consumption of cocaine. Then, this study indicates the reliability and utility of this questionnaire.