Screening Drug, Alcohol and Substance Abuse the Psychometric Measures

Urinalysis was used in previous studies among higher institution students (n=16252) in Malaysia to answer the question of whether university students are involved in drug abuse. However, the use of urinalysis had faced some problems. The problems were related to human rights issues and the cost to perform the urinalysis was expensive and quite impossible to be implemented to a large population of university students. To overcome this problem, this study was conducted to examine the effectiveness of psychometric measures in screening drug, alcohol and substance abuse. The Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory A2 (SASSI-A2) was used for this purpose. SASSI-A2 is a brief screening tool designed to identify individuals who have a high probability of having a substance use disorder, including both substance abuse and substance dependence. SASSI-A2 comprises of 72 items that are rated on a two point scale with response; true and false. SASSI-A2 was translated into Malay language and it was refined through a back-translation technique and focus group approach. Psychometric testing was undertaken on a sample of 750 university students from five public universities in Malaysia. All participants were aged between 19 and 20 years. Internal consistency coefficients were calculated for the total scale and its subscales. Chronbach's alpha obtained for SASSI-A2 was 0.72. This relatively high level of Chronbach's alpha showed relatively high level of reliability. The results demonstrated that the whole SASSI-A2 meets the fundamental measurement properties and can discriminate groups of higher institution students from high to low on the substance dependency variable. The accuracy of the test has been found to be unaffected by gender, ethnicity, age and years of education. Although more rigorous validation studies are needed, it is recommended that SASSI-A2 be considered for usage to higher institution students populations when a brief, objective, and accurate screening tool for chemical dependency is needed

Screening Drug, Alcohol and Substance Abuse the Psychometric Measures

Urinalysis was used in previous studies among higher institution students (n=16252) in Malaysia to answer the question of whether university students are involved in drug abuse. However, the use of urinalysis had faced some problems. The problems were related to human rights issues and the cost to perform the urinalysis was expensive and quite impossible to be implemented to a large population of university students. To overcome this problem, this study was conducted to examine the effectiveness of psychometric measures in screening drug, alcohol and substance abuse. The Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory A2 (SASSI-A2) was used for this purpose. SASSI-A2 is a brief screening tool designed to identify individuals who have a high probability of having a substance use disorder, including both substance abuse and substance dependence. SASSI-A2 comprises of 72 items that are rated on a two point scale with response; true and false. SASSI-A2 was translated into Malay language and it was refined through a back-translation technique and focus group approach. Psychometric testing was undertaken on a sample of 750 university students from five public universities in Malaysia. All participants were aged between 19 and 20 years. Internal consistency coefficients were calculated for the total scale and its subscales. Chronbach's alpha obtained for SASSI-A2 was 0.72. This relatively high level of Chronbach's alpha showed relatively high level of reliability. The results demonstrated that the whole SASSI-A2 meets the fundamental measurement properties and can discriminate groups of higher institution students from high to low on the substance dependency variable. The accuracy of the test has been found to be unaffected by gender, ethnicity, age and years of education. Although more rigorous validation studies are needed, it is recommended that SASSI-A2 be considered for usage to higher institution students populations when a brief, objective, and accurate screening tool for chemical dependency is needed

Sulphide based anode material for lithium rechargeable battery

In this study, lead sulphide (PbS) was prepared by the chemical bath deposition technique. The sample was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Energy Dispersive Analysis of X-rays (EDAX) and cyclic voltammetry. EDAX spectrum shows peaks attributable to lead and sulphur. The EDAX analysis also shows that the prepared sample is stoichiometric. Cyclic voltammetry experiments were recorded at 100 mV-s-1 and 400 mV-s-1 scan rates. Results show that the rate controlling electrochemical reaction is electron transfer. The presence of redox waves shows that the lithium intercalation and deintercalation can occur as a result of lattice expansion in PbS. There were no differences in the PbS XRD data before and after the cyclic voltammetry experiments indicating that the PbS structure is not modified upon lithium ion intercalation and deintercalation in PbS. The discharge characteristics for 35 cycles of the cell using the LiCoO2/PbS couple is presented indicating the possible development of such materials as anode in lithium ion cells