Measurement invariance of alcohol instruments with Hispanic youth

Abstract

Introduction Despite their widespread use across clinical and research settings, no study has yet investigated the fit of several standard alcohol measures for Hispanic youth, including those used to assess motivation to change, resistance self-efficacy, peer norms, and problem drinking. This study thus served to address this gap by evaluating measurement invariance with substance-using youth. Methods We enrolled a large sample of regular substance-using youth, who were involved with the justice system (N = 368; 72.9% male; 76.9% Hispanic; M age = 16.17 years). Similar to the broader Hispanic population of the southwest United States (U.S.), Hispanic youth in the sample were, on average, 3.5th generation (with at least 1 foreign-born grand-parent). Following standard administration and scoring procedures, all youth completed measures of motivation to change (e.g., readiness rulers, intentions to change), self-efficacy (e.g., drink refusal in social situations), peer norms (e.g., peer norms for substance use), and problem drinking (e.g., substance use quantity/frequency; Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test; Rutgers Alcohol Problems Index; Timeline FollowBack). Measurement equivalence was evaluated via multiple group confirmatory factor analysis. Results Our results indicated that each measure evaluated herein worked equally well for Hispanic and Caucasian youth. We found measurement invariance at every level tested. Conclusions This study supports the validity and future use of these important and widely used alcohol use measures for high-risk substance-using Hispanic youth. Further, given the representativeness of this sample within the southwestern U.S., these results show promise for generalizability to U.S.-born Hispanic youth within this geographic region.

Sexual risk-taking and subcortical brain volume in adolescence

“…Thus, from our perspective, the adolescents in our study represent a critical, and often overlooked group within a normative continuum that intersects with and represents mainstream populations, but is often segregated in clinical and research settings. No data, including our own, supports making this distinction in any clinical or research population (79), and in fact, our lab is actively working to reduce this existing disparity in clinical and research efforts (75, 80, 81).…”

Ambivalence: Prerequisite for success in motivational interviewing with adolescents?

“…We recommend caution with this approach; in some instances, adult measures operate well with youth. Yet, others suggest that the underlying processes of brain and behavioral response are quite different, and thus, direct translation might not be indicated .We advocate for the development and empirical assessment of reliable and valid measures of ambivalence in adolescence, as operationalized from an MI viewpoint. This would allow us to move from speculation to data regarding the degree to which ambivalence is required in MI with adolescents.…”

“…We recommend caution with this approach; in some instances, adult measures operate well with youth. Yet, others suggest that the underlying processes of brain and behavioral response are quite different, and thus, direct translation might not be indicated .…”

The cultural equivalence of measurement in substance use research.

“…It is important to note that studies have examined psychometric differences in substance use instruments across cultural groups and found no evidence of bias in measurement (e.g., Bravo et al, 2019; Feldstein Ewing et al, 2015; Spillane & Smith, 2010). However, psychometric properties are sample dependent (Markus & Borsboom, 2013; Revelle & Condon, 2019).…”