Hangover symptoms are linked with excessive alcohol consumption and uniquely predict neurocognitive outcomes (McKinney, 2010; McQueeny et al., 2009; Squeglia et al., 2009). For the ABCD Study, we selected the Hangover Symptom Scale (HSS) (Slutske et al., 2003); this contains 13 items surveying typical symptoms of alcohol hangover including physical (e.g., tiredness, headache, sleep disturbance) and cognitive/psychological symptoms (e.g., difficulty concentrating, anxiety, depressed mood). Factor analysis indicates that covariation among these symptoms are well represented by a single factor with good internal consistency (α = 0.84). As reported by 248, total scores was associated with both alcohol-related consequences and parental alcohol problems even after controlling for multiple consumption measures, indicating HSS scores were indexing more than simply “amount consumed.” Additional evidence of the validity of this measure comes from an electronic diary study where alcohol hangover scores were found to predict the occurrence of hangover the morning after drinking in a sample of 404 recent drinkers, even after controlling for amount consumed on the prior day (Robertson et al., 2012). Youth who report using alcohol twice over the past 6 months will fill out this measure.
