The Development of a General Addictions Scale
Addictions are a more and more present reality and they require the most effective ways to solve them and this is why diagnosing them is a priority in initiating a treatment. The purpose of our study is to build a General Addictions Scale that represents a psychometric alternative to provide a quick and effective analysis of a person’s addiction, be it a physical or a compulsive-behavioural one. It is a general and common-to-all addictions scale that assesses addictions and starts from a neural reality: the existence of common mechanisms of addictions (Nestler, 2005) which cause similar changes at the anatomical and chemical level of the brain (Volkow, et al., 2010). The construct is based on seven dimensions/descriptors common to the five addictions studied: incapacity to face life problems (withdrawal), obsessive concern (salience), lack of control (relapses), remorse, problems generated by an addiction (ex. neglecting job), mood changes (ex. the emergence of conflicting states), concealment (tolerance). We exemplified the use of the General Addictions Scale by generating five specific scales for five addictions: work, alcohol, tobacco, internet, gambling.
addictions, assessment scale, descriptors, common items
