ERIC Number: EJ913758
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011-Mar
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1073-1911
EISSN: N/A
Establishing the Validity of the Personality Assessment Inventory Drug and Alcohol Scales in a Corrections Sample
Patry, Marc W.; Magaletta, Philip R.; Diamond, Pamela M.; Weinman, Beth A.
Assessment, v18 n1 p50-59 Mar 2011
Although not originally designed for implementation in correctional settings, researchers and clinicians have begun to use the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) to assess offenders. A relatively small number of studies have made attempts to validate the alcohol and drug abuse scales of the PAI, and only a very few studies have validated those scales in nonclinical correctional samples. The current study examined evidence of convergent and discriminant validity for the substance abuse scales on the PAI in a large, nonclinical sample of offenders. The net sample for the current study consisted of 1,120 federal inmates. Both the drug abuse and alcohol scales showed good convergent validity through high correlations with relevant proximal and distal indicators of substance use across multiple measures from several data sources. Discriminant validity was established as neither scale showed any "erroneous" correlations after controlling for the other scale. Implications for future research and practice are discussed. (Contains 1 note and 3 tables.)
Descriptors: Personality Assessment, Validity, Drug Abuse, Personality Measures, Measures (Individuals), Correctional Institutions, Institutionalized Persons, Substance Abuse, Alcohol Abuse, Correlation
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A