UNCOPE: A Brief Substance Dependence Screen for Use with Arrestees

Abstract

a clinical psychologist, has developed clinical assessment instruments for over 25 years and has served on accreditation panels for corrections based behavioral health programs. He provides training and technical assistance to states and organizations and is Clinical Associate Professor of Community Health at Brown University. Dana E. Hunt, Ph.D., a sociologist with over twenty-five years of experience in drug research, has conducted studies on methadone, HIV programming, experimental testing of non-traditional drug treatment, and developed methods for estimating the number of hardcore users. Recently she managed and directed the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) program. William Rhodes, Ph.D., an economist, is principal scientist and fellow at Abt Associates, Inc. He specializes in evaluation and quantitative analysis and designed ADAM's sampling and analysis plans. Current projects range from an evaluation of family therapeutic drug courts to assessing the economic damage of hypothetical terrorist attacks in American cities. K. Jack Riley is Director of RAND Public Safety and Justice (PSJ). PSJ includes centers on criminal justice, public safety and drug policy research. He leads projects on terrorism, gun violence and drug policy, including a project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson foundation to analyze drug prosecutions in California.A national multi-site monitoring system for determining prevalence of alcohol and drug involvement in arrestees sought to refine the screening for substance dependence among persons arrested and incarcerated in local jails. Fifteen items were selected from the content of existing alcohol and drug abuse screens. These items were evaluated against a detailed diagnostic interview covering criteria of the DSM-IV. A total of 310 prisoners incarcerated within the previous 48 hours were recruited as subjects. Almost 65% of the subjects had a positive diagnosis of dependence for one or more substances. A six-item screen identified by the acronym UNCOPE emerged as the best set of screening items for identifying dependence on alcohol and/or drugs. The UNCOPE had sensitivity of 88% and specificity of 83% for the sample as a whole. It performed similarly irrespective of gender or ethnicity and appears to have potential utility in a wide range of populations.

Evaluation of the Drug Use Disorders Identification Test (DUDIT) in Criminal Justice and Detoxification Settings and in a Swedish Population Sample

“…The fi rst 9 items with fi ve response alternatives each were coded 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4, and items 10 and 11 with three response alternatives were coded 0, 2 or 4, giving a maximum score of 44 points. 2 For validatory diagnosis of harmful use/substance abuse and dependence according to both ICD-10 and DSM-IV, the Swedish translation of Chapter 12 of the Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN), Version 2.1 [6,7] , was chosen as a 'gold standard' interview schedule. Diagnoses were obtained using computer algorithms [8] .…”

Criminal Involvement Among Young Male Ecstasy Users

“…Previous research adapting the UNCOPE for the ADAM found that UNCOPE items demonstrated good discrimination for drug or alcohol misuse and dependence (Hoffman et al, 2003). In this analysis, separate measures are provided for alcohol and illicit drugs.…”

The self-report Drug Use Disorders Identification Test—Extended (DUDIT-E): Reliability, validity, and motivational index

“…The DUDIT is presented on one page in a userfriendly graphic design with 11 items on the front page; the back page shows a list of illicit drugs in seven categories, followed by commonly abused sedatives, hypnotics, and analgesics. Several other instruments are available for the initial assessment of drug problems: the self-report 10-item Drug Abuse Screening Test (Skinner, 1982) or the six-item UNCOPE (Hoffman, Hunt, Rhodes, & Riley, 2003), as well as brief screening interview schedules such as CAGE-AID (Brown & Rounds, 1995) or Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST; Ali et al, 2002). 1 The DUDIT has three main advantages over these other instruments.…”