The responsible staff person is expected to use information from the report, along with professional judgment, to identify the severity of risk and needs and to develop recommendations for intervention. The original DAQ, intended for assessment of adult substance abuse, has been adapted for use in risk and needs assessment with adult probation and parole clients. The definitions offered for each scale are very limited. No rationale is afforded in the manual for how these scales fit together to measure an overarching construct of substance abuse. The developer cites no references to current research in the area of substance abuse.
Information describing the norming process is vague.
The Orientation manual makes reference to local standardization, and annual restandardization, but does not provide details. One might assume, based on the citing of DAQ research studies involving literally thousands of probationers, that the recency and relevance of norms is beyond question. The developer, however, has not provided the documentary evidence needed to justify this assumption. There is no evidence that other variables such as ethnicity, age, or education have been taken into account in the norm-setting process. The items selected for use in the test have several commonalities.