Objective: Little is known about the validity of diagnostic criteria for alcohol use disorders (AUDs) when applied to adolescents. This study examined the diagnostic concordance of DSM-III, DSM-III-R, DSM-IV and ICD-10 AUDs in a sample of adolescents with a broad range of alcohol problem severity.
Method: Participants were 413 adolescents (250 male), ages 13 to 19, drawn from clinical and community sources. AUDs were assessed using the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM (SCID), modified to make diagnoses in the four nosological systems. Diagnostic agreement for lifetime diagnoses was quantified with the kappa statistic.
Results: Agreement was fair to high across the three categories of alcohol dependence, alcohol abuse and no alcohol diagnosis (kappa = 0.51 to 0.76); for alcohol dependence (kappa = 0.51 to 0.83); and for the categories of any AUD versus no AUD (kappa = 0.55 to 0.96). Concordance was very low for alcohol abuse diagnoses (kappa = 0.10 to 0.23), with the exception of DSM-III-R and DSM-IV (kappa = 0.62). Dependence was superior to abuse in the degree of temporal overlap in diagnostic agreements.
Conclusions: Similar to findings with adults, diagnostic concordance among adolescents tended to be fair to high for alcohol dependence and very low for alcohol abuse. The data highlight the inconsistency across nosological systems in the conceptual framework and definition of the alcohol abuse category.