Page 103 - PhD GT

On the basis of the verbal report of respondents and the spread of responses in this study, it was thought justifiable to conclude that the scale was sufficiently meaningful to abstinent respondents to be useful as a measure of dependence during abstinence as well as during periods of substance use and could therefore be used to track changes in dependence, including those which occur after the cessation of use.
4.5 Conclusions from further work on the Leeds Dependence Questionnaire
As a result of investigating the response choices in the LDQ in Study 1 reported above, the possibility emerged that the inclusion of ‘Rarely’ as a fifth response choice, to be inserted between ‘Never’ and ‘Sometimes’ might enhance the sensitivity of the LDQ at the lower end of dependence. It was borne in mind that the LDQ as it was validated might be more sensitive to different degrees of dependence at the higher end of the scale and that this might impede investigation of the question of differences between high and low dependence individuals. Time and resources available for the present entire study were not sufficient to embark upon further validation of a modified form of the LDQ and I therefore decided to proceed by using the LDQ with the original four response choices.
These same considerations may have been important in Study 2 whose aim was to examine the ability of the LDQ to measure dependence in abstinence. However, the LDQ in its existing form was shown to be able to detect dependence in abstinence and to measure it in different degrees. This lent further weight to the decision that the LDQ would be a suitable instrument for use in a study where the nature of change in dependence was the subject of investigation.
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