H. Charland et G. Cote, THE CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS SCREENING-TEST (CAST) - TEST-RETEST RELIABILITY AND CONCORDANCE VALIDITY, Journal of clinical psychology, 54(7), 1998, pp. 995-1003
The stability of the Children of Alcoholics Screening Test (CAST) has
been called into question by several authors( Hart, 1989: Maxwell, 198
5; Schinke, 1989; Stacey, 1985). In a bid to verify these reservations
, 376 college students were each evaluated twice by means of the CAST.
Results confirm the high reliability and validity of this instrument
in identifying grown-up children raised in homes with at least one alc
oholic parent. Reliability was demonstrated by good internal consisten
cy, high item-total scale correlations, and near perfect test-retest a
greement (k = .83). Furthermore, concordance between high CAST scores
and satisfaction of recognized criteria for alcohol dependence, as mea
sured with the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-III-R (SCID),
attests to the CAST's external validity(k = .78). Moreover, factor an
alysis shows the instrument to have a unidimensional structure. Finall
y, with a cutoff score of 6 or more, the CAST demonstrates excellent s
ensitivity and specificity. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.