Most of brief instruments of evaluation of substance related disorders focuses on the dependence physical indexes and/or on compulsion, evaluating only incidentally the dependence-related social and psychological factors. Our aim is to create and validate a short questionnaire, easy to be distributed, exploring the dependence social and psychological indexes and to be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the therapeutic and rehabilitation treatments whose aim is to change lifestyle as well as abstinence.

The S.A.I.D. is an auto-evaluation questionnaire of 39 items that explore emotions, thoughts and behaviours in addictive subjects, thus providing patient's diagnostic profile in two areas: social area, divided into 4 scales (work/study, relationships, social interaction, cure/physical health); psychological area, divided into 5 scales (depression, hostility, lack of attention, anxiety, alexithymia).446 subjects have been examined: 256 with alcohol dependence diagnosis by using DSM-IV-TR, 70 with cocaine dependence diagnosis by using DSM-IV-TR, 120 not clinical subjects representing the control sample, that are not under psychiatric treatments.

The statistical analysis by Student's t test has showed that the instrument is able to discriminate between alcoholics, cocaine addicts and healthy control subjects; Cronbach's Alpha analysis has noticed a good internal validation in two main areas of the questionnaire, but a substantial unhomogeneity about single subscales.

These results indicate that the instrument is useful for the overall evaluation of social and psychological impairment in addictions, but also suggest the need for a revision of the instrument aiming to a better internal consistency of subscales.