The purposes of the current study were to identify the factor structure of the alcohol-adapted PDD and to establish its construct validity, using data from nationally representative general population sample. We evaluated construct validity by examining the relationship between PAS and two proximal outcomes associated with stigma coping strategies: social network involvement and perceived interpersonal social support. Based upon early work describing modified labeling theory (Link, 1987; Link et al., 1989) we hypothesized that: 1) perceived devaluation and perceived discrimination were unique dimensions of PAS; and 2) the relationship between PAS and perceived interpersonal social support or social network involvement would be negative for persons with lifetime AUDs and magnified for those who had been labeled, operationalized by either lifetime receipt of, or having a perceived need for, alcohol treatment. While studies of modified labeling theory often only use treatment participation to infer labeling status, we also included perceived need for treatment to recognize that treatment participation is much less common for AUDs than for substance-unrelated psychiatric disorders (Kessler et al. 1996), and labeling status exists on a continuum that includes self-labeling (Thoits 1985).
