Belisario Kyla L, Clifton Allan D, Doggett Amanda, González-Roz Alba, Acuff Samuel F, Kelly John F, MacKillop James
Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research, St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton.
Department of Psychological Science, Vassar College.
Psychol Addict Behav. 2025 Sep 1. doi: 10.1037/adb0001092.
Social network analysis offers a high-resolution framework for understanding social influences on alcohol use, but full-length assessments confer significant burden, giving rise to brief measures. However, few studies have empirically compared brief and full-length assessments. To address this, the present study examined the internal and external validity of both brief and full egocentric social network assessments and their ability to capture weak social ties. In 405 adults (57.5% female) with alcohol use disorder, a full egocentric social network assessment estimated drinking behavior in the ego's 20 important alters, as well as their perceived closeness and frequency of interaction with their network, and the presence of supportive ties (mutual help organization members or treatment providers). The assessment yielded four social network drinking characteristics: percent drinking endorsement, percent heavy drinking endorsement, drinking frequency, and heavy drinking frequency. Measures from the full 20-alter assessment were compared to measures from the first 5 alters. Associations between brief and full network measures were of large magnitude ( = .53-.73, < .0001). Internal psychometric properties of the social network drinking characteristics were robust and similar in both assessments and, in terms of external validity, 13/16 (81.3%) associations of network drinking with the ego's drinking severity were equivalent across both assessments. However, the brief assessment had less representation of mutual help organization members and treatment providers ( < .01), resulting in a higher percent of alters endorsing drinking ( < .05). No other significant differences were present among other network drinking characteristics. These findings provide support for brief egocentric social network assessments, but also reveal limitations in characterizing potentially important weak social ties, namely the presence of mutual help organization members and treatment providers. Brief or full-length versions may be variably appropriate depending on the research and clinical aims. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
社会网络分析为理解社会对酒精使用的影响提供了一个高分辨率框架，但完整长度的评估带来了巨大负担，从而催生了简短测量方法。然而，很少有研究对简短和完整长度的评估进行实证比较。为解决这一问题，本研究考察了简短和完整的自我中心社会网络评估的内部和外部效度，以及它们捕捉薄弱社会关系的能力。在405名患有酒精使用障碍的成年人（57.5%为女性）中，完整的自我中心社会网络评估估计了自我的20个重要关系人的饮酒行为，以及他们对与自己社交网络的亲近感和互动频率，以及支持性关系（互助组织成员或治疗提供者）的存在情况。该评估得出了四个社会网络饮酒特征：饮酒认可百分比、重度饮酒认可百分比、饮酒频率和重度饮酒频率。将完整的20个关系人评估的测量结果与前5个关系人的测量结果进行了比较。简短和完整网络测量之间的关联程度很大（=0.53 - 0.73，p < 0.0001）。社会网络饮酒特征的内部心理测量属性在两种评估中都很稳健且相似，就外部效度而言，两种评估中网络饮酒与自我饮酒严重程度的16个关联中有13个（81.3%）是等同的。然而，简短评估中互助组织成员和治疗提供者的代表性较低（p < 0.01），导致认可饮酒的关系人百分比更高（p < 0.05）。在其他网络饮酒特征方面没有其他显著差异。这些发现为简短的自我中心社会网络评估提供了支持，但也揭示了在刻画潜在重要的薄弱社会关系（即互助组织成员和治疗提供者的存在）方面的局限性。根据研究和临床目标，简短或完整长度版本可能各有不同的适用性。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2025美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
