Substance Use & Misuse, 45:1303–1318 Copyright © 2010 Informa Healthcare USA, Inc. ISSN: 1082-6084 (print); 1532-2491 (online) DOI: 10.3109/10826081003682263 Measurements Instruments Scales Tests Two Scales to Evaluate Cocaine Craving MIGUEL ´ ANGEL MU ˜ NOZ, 1 JULIA A. MART ´ INEZ, 2 MARIA CARMEN FERN ´ ANDEZ-SANTAELLA, 3 JAIME VILA 1 AND ANTONIO CEPEDA-BENITO 4 1 University of Granada, Granada, Spain 2 University of Missouri-Columbia Columbia, Missouri, USA 3 University of Granada, Granada, Spain 4 Texas A&M University College Station, Texas, USA The cocaine craving questionnaire-brief (CCQ-Brief English) asks cocaine users to report their level of craving now. We constructed two brief scales of cocaine craving in a sample of 107 Spanish-speaking natives in treatment for cocaine abuse or dependence: the CCQ-Brief(Spanish) and the pictographic assessment of desire (PAD), which relies less on language. Principal component analyses yielded a one-component solution for the CCQ-Brief, explaining between 62% and 68% of the sample variability. Cronbach’s alpha ranged from .92 to .94. The CCQ-Brief and the PAD were strongly correlated; effect sizes ranged from .42 to .68 in separate trials. Laboratory cue-exposure results showed that in both scales craving was higher upon presentation of cocaine-related rather than neutral pictorial stimuli. The CCQ-Brief and PAD are potentially valuable scales for evaluating cocaine craving. Keywords cocaine, craving; cue-exposure, assessment, cross-cultural Introduction Drug craving, or the intense desire to consume a certain substance, is strongly associated with lapse and/or relapse from substance abuse and dependence (Lu, Grimm, Hope, and Shaham, 2004; O’Brien, 2005). That is, repeated drug use in individuals is found in tandem with a broad range of neuroadaptations in brain dopamine systems. Stimuli in the environ- ment in which an individual typically administers the drug are conditioned, making them attractive and wanted (Drummond, 2001; Robinson and Berridge, 1993). That is, for a drug user, secondary stimuli such as the paraphernalia used to take the drug, the sight and smell of the drug, and the atmosphere of the location where the user often takes the drug become important; he or she begins to associate all these secondary stimuli with the drug-taking experience. These conditioned associations are relatively unnoticed by individuals when Address correspondence to Miguel ´ Angel Mu˜ noz, Ph.D., University of Granada, Campus de la Cartuja S/N, Granada 18007, Spain; E-mail: miguelamuoz@yahoo.es. 1303 Subst Use Misuse Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Universitat Illes Balears on 05/28/10 For personal use only.