SynthesisBMC medical research methodology2020
Psychometric properties of measures of substance use: a systematic review and meta-analysis of reliability, validity and diagnostic test accuracy.
Synthesis in BMC medical research methodology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- Patient-reported outcomes for monitoring substance use treatment: A systematic review of single-item measures.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2026Pooled it
- Correlates of high phosphatidylethanol (PEth) levels and their concordance with self-reported heavy alcohol consumption among men who have sex with men who binge drink alcohol.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2022Trial
- Latent Class Analysis of Substance Use Behaviors and Associations of Class Membership With Gender Affirmation, Social Determinants of Health, and HIV Status Among Transfeminine Adults in the Eastern and Southern United States.Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs · 2026Article
- Estimating the Joint Probability Density for Index Construction: Some Simplifications Using the TWEAK as Example.International journal of methods in psychiatric research · 2026Article
- Alcohol Use and HIV Suppression After Release From Prison Among People With HIV in Zambia.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Medical gender affirmation appears protective against problematic substance use among transgender women and transfeminine adults: Findings from The LITE Study.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2025Article
- Characteristics Associated with Engagement in the Early Detection Cascade of Care for Psychosis at a College Counseling Center.Community mental health journal · 2025Article
- Positive Childhood Experiences are Associated With Alcohol Use in Adolescent and Emerging Adult Females by Adverse Childhood Experiences Dimension.The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine · 2024Article
- Validity of an online, self-administered Timeline Followback for alcohol use with adolescents.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Article
- The Relationship Between Harmful Alcohol Use and Antiretroviral Non-adherence in People Accessing HIV Treatment in Cape Town, South Africa: An Event-Level Analysis.AIDS and behavior · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors at 8 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSynthesis of psychometric properties of substance use measures to identify patterns of use and substance use disorders remains limited. To address this gap, we sought to systematically evaluate the psychometric properties of measures to detect substance use and misuse.
methodsWe conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of literature on measures of substance classes associated with HIV risk (heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, ecstasy, alcohol) that were published in English before June 2016 that reported at least one of the following psychometric outcomes of interest: internal consistency (alpha), test-retest/inter-rater reliability (kappa), sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value. We used meta-analytic techniques to generate pooled summary estimates for these outcomes using random effects and hierarchical logistic regression models.
resultsFindings across 387 paper revealed that overall, 65% of pooled estimates for alpha were in the range of fair-to-excellent; 44% of estimates for kappa were in the range of fair-to-excellent. In addition, 69, 97, 37 and 96% of pooled estimates for sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value, respectively, were in the range of moderate-to-excellent.
conclusionWe conclude that many substance use measures had pooled summary estimates that were at the fair/moderate-to-excellent range across different psychometric outcomes. Most scales were conducted in English, within the United States, highlighting the need to test and validate these measures in more diverse settings. Additionally, the majority of studies had high risk of bias, indicating a need for more studies with higher methodological quality.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.