Latent class analysis is a person centred approach which is aimed at categorizing individuals into groups where individuals are similar to one and another, and dissimilar across groups [24]. Individuals are classified on the basis of a number of observed variables: in this instance, their endorsement of opioid abuse and dependence criteria. Within each class, conditional item probabilities provide information on the probability of an individual in that class endorsing each item or criterion [28]. The current study tested latent class models with two to five classes.
