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Alcohol and Alcoholism, Vol 34, 254-260, Copyright © 1999 by Medical Council on Alcoholism

ARTICLES

Craving and relapse measurement in alcoholism

A Potgieter, F Deckers and P Geerlings
TransScientifica-ESPC, Nice, France; Merck, Overijse, Belgium; Jellinek Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Corresponding author at: 5 bis Chemin de Longo Mai, F-06600 Antibes, France

This paper attempts to summarize the measurement of craving with four different craving instruments and to relate this to definitions and measurement of relapse. The definitions of relapse may vary between studies and researchers, but are usually well defined. Five commonly used methods to measure relapse are: (1) quantity/frequency of drinking; (2) cumulative duration of abstinence (CDA); (3) post-withdrawal abstinent period; (4) stable recovery period; (5) the time line follow-back method. The definition of craving is much less clear and is mostly described as an emotional-motivational state or as obsessive-compulsive behaviour. Four self-rating instruments are briefly discussed and compared: the Obsessive-Compulsive Drinking Scale., OCDS, the Lubeck Craving Scale, LCRR, the Alcohol Craving Questionnaire, ACQ-Now-SF-R, and ordinal scales (e.g. visual analogue, Likert, or verbal descriptive, scales). These instruments measure different aspects or dimensions of craving over different periods. The different dimensions measured suggest that there is still a need to conceptualize a standard interpretation of the word craving. There is a need also to measure an emotional-motivational dimension, a cognitive-behavioural dimension, expectancies, and effects on positive and negative reinforcement with different instruments or with one multidimensional instrument. It is suggested that different patients are expected to have differing craving profiles.
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