Drug Use Disorders Identification Test
A questionnaire on drug use and drug-related problems – the drug counterpart to the AUDIT for alcohol.
- Category
- Alcohol & drugs
- Who fills it in
- Self-report
- Items
- 11
- Recall period
- Current use and past year
On this page
Licensed scale
This scale is under licence, so its items cannot be shown here. The information on this page describes it; contact the rights holder to obtain the instrument.
What it measures
The DUDIT covers how often and how much drugs are used, signs of dependence such as craving, loss of control and needing drugs in the morning, and consequences such as guilt, harm and concern from others. Questions 1–9 are scored 0 to 4 and questions 10 and 11 are scored 0, 2 or 4, giving a total between 0 and 44.
When to use it
The DUDIT is a first step if you want to know whether a patient's use of drugs or medicines might be causing problems. It does not ask about alcohol – for that, the AUDIT or AUDIT-C is the right questionnaire. According to the developers, the DUDIT is the first step of a four-step assessment, followed by a more detailed assessment, a full diagnostic interview and a follow-up.
Origin
The DUDIT was developed by Anne H. Berman, Hans Bergman, Tom Palmstierna and Frans Schlyter at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, with funding from the Swedish Prison and Probation Administration. The manual was published in 2003. The German version was produced by Anja Thormann and Dr. Norbert Schalast at the Institute of Forensic Psychiatry, University of Duisburg-Essen.
Validation
The DUDIT was evaluated with diagnostic interviews in 154 drug-using prison inmates and detoxification patients, and reference values were produced from a random sample of the Swedish general population. In the high-prevalence group, a score of 25 identified drug dependence with a sensitivity of 90% according to both DSM-IV and ICD-10, and a specificity of 78% (DSM-IV) and 88% (ICD-10). The cutoffs of 6 for men and 2 for women are based on the general-population data and are described by the developers as preliminary. A German version adapted for adolescents showed high diagnostic accuracy in adolescent psychiatric patients (Basedow et al., 2021).
Limitations
The DUDIT is a screen, not a diagnosis. The developers describe the cutoffs for men and women as highly preliminary and note that the DUDIT had not yet been validated in low-prevalence settings such as primary care or schools when the manual was written. It does not cover alcohol and relies on honest self-report. The German validation study was carried out with adolescents, so evidence for the German version in adults is more limited.
Frequently asked questions
- Why can't the DUDIT be filled in here?
- The DUDIT may only be used in its copyrighted original layout. That is why this page only provides information about it.
- Is the result a diagnosis?
- No. The DUDIT shows whether a closer look at the patient's drug use makes sense. Only a doctor or psychotherapist can diagnose a substance use disorder.
- Do medicines count as drugs?
- Only in certain cases: if the patient takes more or more often than prescribed, takes them to feel good or get high, got them from a friend or relative, or bought them on the black market or stole them. Medicines taken as prescribed by their doctor do not count.
References
- Berman AH, Bergman H, Palmstierna T, Schlyter F. DUDIT – The Drug Use Disorders Identification Test: Manual. Version 1.0. Stockholm: Karolinska Institutet; 2003.
- Berman AH, Bergman H, Palmstierna T, Schlyter F. Evaluation of the Drug Use Disorders Identification Test (DUDIT) in criminal justice and detoxification settings and in a Swedish population sample. European Addiction Research. 2005.
- EU Drugs Agency (EUDA). Drug Use Disorders Identification Test (DUDIT) – drugs library.
- Basedow et al. Diagnostic accuracy of the Drug Use Disorder Identification Test and its short form, the DUDIT-C, in German adolescent psychiatric patients. Front Psychol. 2021.
Licence & attribution
© 2002 Anne H. Berman, Hans Bergman, Tom Palmstierna & Frans Schlyter, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
Public domain, but the layout is copyrighted; users are asked to retain the layout to facilitate valid comparisons (EUDA). The manual asks users to use the items only in the copyrighted layout, so the questionnaire is not reproduced here.