Objective: To evaluate psychometric properties of both brief DAST versions (DAST-10 and DAST-20) in Spanish adult population.
Methods: 259 (121 drug users and 138 healthy controls) were explored. Both brief 10 and 20 items Spanish adapted DAST rating scales were administrated by skilled personnel. Psychometric properties of those questionnaires were analized using DSM-IV TR criteria as gold standard.
Results: Both DAST versions registered a high internal reliability (α = .93 and α = .89 for DAST-20 and DAST-10, respectively). The exploratory factor analysis extracted five factors in the DAST 20, justifying 74.12 % of variance, and two components in the DAST-10 that explained 62.18% of this. Cut-off points ≥ 5/6 (DAST-20) and ≥ 3 (DAST-10) evidenced a high agreement with DSM-IV TR diagnosis (κDAST-20 = .96 y κDAST-10 = .91), correctly classifying the 98.07 % and 95.36 % of the subjects, respectively.
Conclusion: In this study results show that both DAST-10 and DAST- 20 might be considered valid and reliable instruments in drug abuse detection in adult population.