Open AccessItem Responses in Quantity–Frequency Questionnaires: Implications for Data Generalizability
Author(s) -
Jordan Stevens,
Emilie Shireman,
Douglas Steinley,
Thomas M. Piasecki,
Daniel C. Vinson,
Kenneth J. Sher
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
assessment
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.59
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1552-3489
pISSN - 1073-1911
DOI - 10.1177/1073191119858398
Subject(s) - generalizability theory , binge drinking , consumption (sociology) , psychology , affect (linguistics) , alcohol consumption , timeline , population , scale (ratio) , statistics , environmental health , poison control , alcohol , human factors and ergonomics , medicine , developmental psychology , mathematics , geography , social science , biochemistry , chemistry , communication , cartography , sociology
Alcohol consumption is an important predictor of a variety of negative outcomes. There is an extensive literature that examines the differences in the estimated level of alcohol consumption between types of assessments (e.g., quantity-frequency [QF] questionnaires, daily diaries). However, it is typically assumed that all QF-based measures are nearly identical in their assessment of the volume of alcohol consumption in a population. Using timeline follow-back data and constructing common QF consumption measures, we examined differences among survey instruments to assess alcohol consumption and heavy drinking. Using three data sets, including clinical to community samples, we demonstrate how scale-specific item characteristics (i.e., number of response options and ranges of consumption assessed by each option) can substantially affect the estimated mean level of consumption and estimated prevalence of binge drinking. Our analyses suggest that problems can be mitigated by employing more resolved measures of quantity and frequency in consumption questionnaires.