Chunk #39 — Suggested Criteria for the Assessment of Tobacco Dependence — Rationale for Included Criteria — Criteria 3 & 4: Time to first cigarette (TTFC) after waking, and usual number of cigarettes consumed per day (cpd)
Finally, while it might be attractive to add criteria because they seem conceptually appropriate, each added criterion comes with a potential cost—not only in terms of burden—but also because each added criterion has the potential to dilute the proportion of variance in the instrument (assessment) that reflects more valid criteria or items.
