Short communicationValidation of the modified fagerström tolerance questionnaire with salivary cotinine among adolescents☆
Section snippets
Subjects
This investigation uses data from volunteer students in a smoking prevention and cessation program administered at four vocational-technical schools in Rhode Island. The sample for this analysis included 131 students who currently were smoking one or more cigarettes per week; 49% were male, 93% were White, and the mean age was 17.7 years (SD = 0.8). On average, subjects had smoked regularly for 3.1 years (SD = 1.7).
Survey administration and biochemical validation
A modified version of the FTQ scale was incorporated into the project's
Results
The mean FTQ scale score was 3.74 (SD = 1.70). The interitem correlations ranged from −.04 to .52. The item “Do you inhale?” exhibited either negative or modestly positive associations with other scale items. Item-to-total score correlations ranged from .08 to .59. The Cronbach alpha estimate of internal consistency for the seven items was .70; omission of the inhalation item would have increased the alpha minimally to .71.
As hypothesized, we observed a significant positive correlation between
Discussion
With a half-life exceeding that of nicotine, cotinine is considered to be the “gold standard” for measuring nicotine intake Etzel 1990, Fagerström & Schneider 1989. For this reason, it was selected as the reference measure in our study. Saliva sampling for cotinine analysis is a routine procedure in adolescent smoking studies and has been shown to provide comparable information on nicotine levels as plasma cotinine (Curvall, Elwin, Kazemi-Vala, Warholm, & Enzell, 1990).
Overall, the scale
Acknowledgements
The cotinine assays were performed by Dr. Douglas Hoffman, Neurochemistry Laboratory, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, NH 03756. The study was approved by the University of Rhode Island Institutional Review Board.
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This study was supported by two grants from the American Cancer Society: ACS PRB-70 and ACS PRB-70-A. Cotinine analyses were made possible by a grant provided by SmithKline-Beecham Healthcare.