In: Anatomy and Physiology
Ans:
Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST-20) is used to provide a brief, simple, practical but valid method for identifying individuals who are abusing psychoactive drugs. Another purpose of this test is to yield a quantitative index score of the degree of problems related to drug use and misuse. There are many pros and cons of using the DAST-20.
The main advantages of DAST-20 includes:
(i) This method is quick and cheap to administer.
(ii) It provides good reliability and validity.
(iii) To offer help by using different languages with already available different versions of the test
(iv) This tool delivers a quantitative interpretation with reference to the degree or severity of problem.
(v) It helps in assessing the kind of treatment needed for the patient.
(vi) It is highly face-valid instrument.
Few disadvantages of DAST-20 includes:
(i) The scores from the tool may be misinterpreted
(ii) It gives respondents the chance to fake the results by themselves.
(iii) Dichotomized items do not operationalize patterns of drug use e.g. frequency or severity.
DAST-20 is used in the following populations: