AIMS: To assess the validity of the Fagerstr  m test for @entity1239 @entity734 ( @entity17378 , six items) and of a short-form of this questionnaire, the Heaviness of Smoking Index (HSI, two items), in a population of relatively light smokers. DESIGN: Comparison of item content with published definitions of addiction. Test-retest reliability and multiple tests of construct validity, based on a secondary analysis of a cohort study conducted between November 1995 and June 1996. SETTING: University of Geneva, Switzerland. @entity1 : Students (82%), @entity4207 (12%) and administrative staff (6%): 643 smokers at baseline and 482 smokers at follow-up. MEASUREMENTS: French-language versions of the @entity17378 and HSI, smoking status, saliva @entity4874 level, self-efficacy for quitting smoking and other variables related to addiction with cigarettes. FINDINGS: A literature review showed that both composite scales fail to assess several recognised aspects of @entity286 @entity734 . In this population of relatively light smokers (average: 12 cigarettes per day), both tests had important floor effects with, respectively, 55% and 63% of @entity1 with scores equal to 0 or 1 on these scales. In addition, two of the @entity17378 items (Difficult-to-refrain and Hate-most-to-give-up) had poor psychometric properties. Even though @entity17378 and HSI correlated about as expected with criterion variables, the number of cigarettes smoked per day performed better than either composite scale on most validation criteria. CONCLUSION: In a population of relatively light smokers, @entity17378 and HSI seem to measure little more than the number of cigarettes per day. Designing a new and more broadly applicable test of addiction to cigarettes is a research priority.

Validity of the Fagerstr  m test for @entity1239 XXXX and of the Heaviness of Smoking Index among relatively light smokers.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['participants', 'PARTICIPANTS'] @entity286 :: ('4097', 'Species') :: ['tobacco'] @entity1239 :: ('MESH:D009538', 'Chemical') :: ['nicotine'] @entity4874 :: ('MESH:D003367', 'Chemical') :: ['cotinine'] @entity4207 :: ('MESH:D007859', 'Disease') :: ['academic'] @entity17378 :: ('MESH:D014029', 'Disease') :: ['FTND'] @entity734 :: ('MESH:D019966', 'Disease') :: ['dependence']
@entity734 :: (MESH:D019966,Disease) :: ['dependence']
