Zeitschrift für Suchtforschung und -therapie

Abstrakt

Assessment Scales for Nicotine Addiction

Naomi Sato, Tomonori Sato, Akiko Nozawa and Haruhiko Sugimura

The genetics of nicotine addiction has been probed using combinations of genetic markers and questionnaire results regarding individual smoking behavior. Recently, the association of nicotine addiction with various candidate gene or gene polymorphisms has been proposed based on genome-wide association studies and candidate gene approaches, but the assessment of smoking behaviors including how severely each smoker is addicted, is typically performed using limited measures such as questionnaires. In this review, we present part of our recent data in which different scaling methods detected different genetic polymorphisms associated with different aspects of addicted smoking behaviors, as determined using questionnaire responses and genotyping data for 2500 Japanese elderly subjects. Several scaling methods have been developed to estimate nicotine addiction; here, we briefly review four scaling methods in addition to the Fagerström Tolerance Questionnaire (FTQ) and the Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND): The Tobacco Dependence Screener (TDS), the Wisconsin Inventory of Smoking Dependence Motives (WISDM), the Cigarette Dependence Scale (CDS), and the Nicotine Dependence Syndrome Scale (NDSS). The characteristics and powers of these scales are also discussed. These scales are used regionally; for example, the TDS is mainly used in Japan, while the NDSS and the WISDM are used in the US. Taking advantage of the characteristics of these scaling methods and comparing them with each other in various populations may be useful for elucidating the genetic and non- genetic nature of nicotine dependence.