Parental alcoholism and the validity of the SASSI-2 Family Subscale.

Abstract

The validity of the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory-2 (SASSI-2) FAM scale was investigated by examining the family (FAM) scale's ability to distinguish children of alcoholics from children of non-alcoholics. The FAM scale scores and clinical diagnoses were collected for 80 males and separated into four groups (n. = 20): those with both chemical dependency and parental alcoholism, those with chemical dependency and no parental alcoholism, those without chemical dependency and with alcoholic parents, and those with neither chemical dependency nor parental alcoholism. Results of an analysis of variance indicated the FAM scale was unable to distinguish children of alcoholics from children of non-alcoholics. A significant difference was found in the FAM scores of the chemically dependent versus non-ehemically dependent, with the scores of the chemically dependent individuals being significantly lower than their nonchemically dependent counterparts. This confirms the hypothesis that the FAM scale may be biased in detecting co-dependency among the chemically dependent. Additional research was suggested to further investigate the utility and validity of the SASSI-2 FAM scale in identifying co-dependence.