Psychological diagnostic of risk factors for involving adolescents in the use of narcotic substances: the development of a methodical complex. Part 1. Scale structure and psychometric characteristics

Abstract

Paper is devoted to the development and validation of the methodological complex for psychological diagnostic of the risk factors for involving adolescents in the use of narcotic substances. The diagnostic of people using psychoactive substances is difficult due to their defensive strategy of answers — both because of the intentional desire to keep their behavior in secret, and because of distortion of the assessment of Self and own behavior. An expanded clinical-psychological observation, due to its high costs, is not always possible, which makes it urgent to develop a primary screening instruments, on the basis of which it is possible to identify risk groups for whom the clinical-psychological examination is especially important, controlling for possible falsifications in the responses. In this work three psychodiagnostic approaches are consistently applied to overcome these difficulties: after the initial theoretical development of constructs, items are selected based on “empirical keying” approach (by their ability to differentiate the clinical and control groups), and then scales are refined based on their psychometric characteristics in the clinical not a control group. This first part of the paper presents the results of testing consistency and factor validity of the methodological complex scales conducted on a sample of 637 pupils of the upper grades of general education schools from 12 subjects of the Russian Federation and 108 pupils involved in the use of narcotic substances. The methodological complex includes scales of technological addictions, antisocial tendencies, self-regulation, emotional control, novelty seeking, risky behavior, child-parent relations, coping strategies for problem solving, social support and avoidance, as well as additional indicators of socially desirable and random answers.

Keywords

• involvement in the use of narcotic substances
• psychological risk factors
• adolescence
• psychodiagnostic