Access to substance abuse treatment in the Cape Town metropole ...

Drug Screen (TCUDS-II, Knight et al., 2002). As cases were known to have alifetime diagnosis of substance dependence, they were not screened for SUDS.The TCUDS had good internal reliability, with this study obtaining a coefficientalpha of .88.3.3.3.2. The Access to Treatment Survey Questionnaire (ATQ)The ATQ, designed to examine access to substance abuse treatment amongSouth African populations, is a 45-page questionnaire that collects self-reportinformation on several domains, including factors thought to predispose personsto seeking treatment, factors thought to enable or restrict access, need fortreatment variables, and utilization of substance abuse services. The ATQconsists of scales that were constructed for the purposes of this study andexisting standard questionnaires. The following sub-sections summarise thedomains and measures comprising the ATQ in more detail (see Table 1).• Utilization of substance abuse treatment servicesThe dependent variable for this study is realized access or utilization oftreatment. This was assessed by the question: “Have you ever gone anywhereor seen anyone for help with alcohol and/or drug-related problems? “• Need for substance abuse treatmentThe ATQ assesses perceived and evaluated need for substance abuse treatmentas well as severity of SUDS - with greater severity indicative of more treatmentneed. Perceived need is examined by the following questions: “Do you think youhave an alcohol or drug problem?”, “Do you think you need help to change youralcohol and/or drug use?”, and “Have other people suggested that you need helpto change your use of alcohol/drugs?” The Substance Use Disorders module ofthe Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV-TR (SCID-I, First et al., 1997) isused to objectively evaluate need for treatment. The following scales alsoexamine perceived need:29