Reader’s Question

Can you help me please? I am looking for a diagnostic tool for measuring family history of alcoholism. It is know as the ‘Family History-Research Diagnostic Criteria’. Do you know where I could get a copy? Thank you, I am a graduate student at a Connecticut university and I am doing research on the relationship of alcoholism and family history.

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

The “Family History-Research Diagnostic Criteria” has been involved in multiple studies. To the best of my knowledge, I don’t think it’s available commercially. It can be found in the 1977 Archives of General Psychiatry, Vol. 34, No. 10, pp 1229-1235, in the article entitled “The Family History Method of Using Diagnostic Criteria: Validity and Reliability”. The instrument was developed by Andreasen, Endicott, and Spitzer. [Editor's note: the abstract is available here.]

One method of tracking down these instruments is to Google search for the instrument, find research publications, then identify the original citation in the bibliography.

Good luck in your research.