Readiness to change among a group of heavy-drinking college students: correlates of readiness and a comparison of measures.

OBJECTIVE

Although several multi-item scales assess readiness to change alcohol consumption, some researchers have proposed that a small number of single-item rulers may assess readiness nearly as well.

PARTICIPANTS

In fall 2006 and spring 2007, the authors assessed 279 participants who reported at least 1 heavy drinking episode in the 2 weeks prior to the survey.

METHODS

The authors compared answers from the Readiness to Change Questionnaire with rulers measuring importance and confidence regarding change.

RESULTS

Importance correlated strongly with readiness to change, whereas confidence correlated negatively and less strongly with readiness. The validity of the importance ruler as a proxy for readiness was supported by its correlations with several measures of patterns of alcohol use, as well as its precursors and consequences.

CONCLUSIONS

Given the strong correlation between the importance ruler and the Readiness to Change score, this method may have practical utility as a brief assessment tool. Adding confidence as a second dimension slightly improved the ability to predict readiness.