A Review of Instruments for Screening and Diagnosis of Cocaine Use

Cocaine is the second most used illicit drug worldwide. Identification of cocaine use disorders (CUD) and related aspects such as craving and CUD severity are relevant for clinical practice, public health programs, and research. There are a wide variety of instruments available for assessing CUD, showing different reliability, validity, and applicability in different subpopulations. For screening and diagnosis, the Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST), the Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST), and the Drug Use Disorder Identification Test stand out among the many present in the field. Among the severity tests, the Addiction Severity Index (ASI), the Substance Dependence Severity Scale (SDSS), and the Severity of Dependence Scale (SDS) are the most relevant. Finally, for craving assessment, the Obsessive-Compulsive Cocaine Scale (OCCS), the Obsessive-Compulsive Drug Use Scale-Cocaine Version (OCDUS-C), the Desires for Drug Questionnaire-Cocaine Version (DDQ-C), and the Cocaine Craving Questionnaire-Now (CCQ-Now) are the most frequently employed. This chapter aims at the description of its psychometric properties and most fundamental characteristics.