Screening for Addiction Risk in Chronic Opioid Therapy

DESCRIPTION (provided by investigator): This Phase I application aims to develop the Screener for Opioid Addiction Potential (SOAP), a self-administered, brief screening tool for chronic pain patients considered for opioid therapy. The SOAP will identify individuals who may be at risk for addiction. No current, validated procedure exists for this purpose. A rigorous, methodological approach will establish reliability and predictive validity Phase I begins the test development process. Concept mapping procedures will integrate input from experts on pain and addiction, providers, and patients to create an operational definition of addiction in chronic pain patients. Concept mapping is also employed to generate items and subject them to a conceptual evaluation. An initial empirical feasibility test, using cross sectional methods, will result in a beta version of the SOAP to be prospectively validated and cross-validated in Phase II. Special attention will be paid to ensure validity of the measure for chronic pain patients with addiction histories. Sensitivity and specificity of cutoff scores will be calculated and examined with respect to pre-test probabilities of addiction Substantial Phase Ill support has been committed by Endo Pharmaceuticals. The resulting measure should be reliable, valid, and easy to use in practice settings.