Psychometric properties of the Chinese craving beliefs questionnaire for heroin abusers in methadone treatment

BACKGROUND This paper reports the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of Craving Beliefs Questionnaire (CCBQ), an easy-to-administer assessment instrument of measurement of craving beliefs for heroin abusers. METHODS Participants were 445 heroin abusers from four methadone clinics in Northern Taiwan. Fifty-one of the participants were tested twice within a two-week period at a different hospital to examine test-retest reliability. RESULTS Three-factor solution using principal component analysis was identified in the CCBQ: will power, compulsive behavior, and negative coping, accounting for 54.6% of the variance. Internal consistency analysis indicated that the three factors have strong reliability, with Cronbach alphas ranging from .81 to .92. The test-retest ICC coefficient is .80. The test-retest coefficients for the subscales will power, compulsive behavior, and negative coping are .76, .51, and .64, respectively. Overall, the data show that the CCBQ has acceptable reliability and validity, demonstrating that it can be a research instrument for assessing heroin craving beliefs. CONCLUSIONS The psychometric properties of the CCBQ seem promising for both research and clinical purposes, and the scale thus deserves further refinement and validation with heroin abusers.