Gender differences in measuring adolescent drug abuse and related psychosocial factors

Although gender issues have been addressed in clinical drug abuse literature, very little research has focused on gender differences in terms of the psychometric properties of assessment instruments. If boys and girls interpret instruments differently, the accuracy of clinical evaluation, referral, and treatment decisions based on these measures may be compromised. The current study examines this issue within the context of one instrument, the Personal Experience Inventory (PEI). The PEI is a multi-scale, self-administered questionnaire that has been used in various descriptive and treatment Studies of adolescent drug abusers. We examine gender-specific psychometric properties of the PEI based on a drug-abusing sample of adolescents (n of boys = 1,322; 11 of girls = 822). The results indicate that reliability and validity evidence, as well as factor structure data, are generally comparable for both genders. However, differences did arise in rates of elevation on the distortion scales. Limitations of the present study and future research needs are discussed.