The Obsessive Compulsive Drinking Scale: Translation into Dutch and possible modifications

The 14-item Obsessive Compulsive Drinking Scale (OCDS) is a quick and reliable self-rating instrument developed to measure cognitive aspects of craving for alcohol. The aim of this study was to translate the OCDS into Dutch (OCDS-Dutch). In addition, as a secondary exploratory exercise eight questions were added: three items referring to drinking intention, as potential substitutes for the OCDS items referring to drinking behavior, and five affective items. Three visual analogue scales were also added for comparison. The translated scale and the additional items were administered to 39 Dutch and Belgian alcohol-dependent patients. Translated and substituted scale scores were highly comparable with the OCDS. The internal consistency was good (alpha OCDS: 0.86, OCDS-Dutch: 0.85, and substituted scale: 0.89). The intercorrelations between scale and subscale scores ranged from 0.62 to 0.93 in all three versions of the scale. The relation with. analogue craving measures of the OCDS-Dutch (r = 0.71) and substituted scale (r = 0.70) was higher than that of the OCDS (r = 0.40). The affective items did not improve reliability or validity of the scale in any way. The translated scale seems to be psychometrically as valid as the original scale. Substitution of the drinking behavior items by drinking intention items to predict alcohol use seems useful and further research with the proposed questions is suggested.