Short communicationA short form of the Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence and the Heaviness of Smoking Index in two adult population samples
Introduction
Very little is revealed about the psychometric properties of the Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND) and the Heaviness of Smoking Index (HSI) from representative population samples Haddock et al., 1999, Lacchetti et al., 2001. Such research could determine the magnitude of floor effects (Etter, Duc, & Perneger, 1999). Little is known about the extent to which the HSI is equivalent to the information provided by the FTND from nontreatment-seeking samples or representative population samples (cf. Kozlowski, Porter, Orleans, Pope, & Heatherton, 1994). Nothing is known from studies which compare representative population samples to test the external validity of the results. The goal of the present paper was to prove to what degree (1) a reduced item solution of the FTND and (2) the HSI represent the FTND in two population samples and to show the distribution of the levels of dependence according to the HSI.
Section snippets
Methods
For sample 1, eligible participants were all noninstitutionalized individuals aged 18–64 living in the northern German 217,000-inhabitant city of Lübeck and 46 surrounding communities (Transitions in Alcohol Consumption and Smoking; Meyer, Rumpf, Hapke, Dilling, & John, 2000). A random sample from the community residents' registration files had been drawn. Every resident has to be included in these data files by law. The participation rate was 70.2%. There were 3950 participants aged 20–64
Results
PCA revealed two factors in sample 1 with an eigenvalue ≥1 (Table 1), one factor included four (time to first cigarette after waking up, difficulty not to smoke where prohibited, number of cigarettes per day, smoking when ill and in bed), while one factor included only two items (cigarette most hated to give up: first in the morning-other, smoking more in the morning than the rest of the day). The variance explained by the two factors was 50.9% in sample 1. We tested two models in a
Discussion
The analyses reveal a short form of the FTND: (1) The first factor proposed on grounds of the PCA represents the urge to smoke and the tobacco-smoke-seeking behavior. Factor 2 should be omitted because it comprises too few items. Furthermore, it includes morning smoking which is covered by Factor 1 as well. (2) The results exactly replicate findings from a sample of adults at the age of 17–35 years (Haddock et al., 1999). (3) The two-factor model is confirmed by factor analysis in the second
Acknowledgements
Data described in this paper have been funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education, Science, Research, and Technology (grants no. 01 EB 9406, ZZ9603), the Ministry of Cultural Affairs as well as the Social Ministry of the Federal State of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania.
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