Parental histories of alcohol, drug, depression, and antisocial behavior problems were ascertained in a separate module of the AUDADIS following the module evaluating the respondent’s own alcohol history. In assessing family history, interviewers read definitions to respondents that included examples of the respective diagnostic criteria. Rather than reading the full diagnostic criteria, the definitions included readily observable manifestations of the disorder, since these are the mostly likely to be known to family informants and thus increase the sensitivity of the measure (Andreasen et al., 1977; Slutske et al., 1996; Zimmerman and Martinez-Pons, 1988). Interviewers then asked separately whether respondents’ biological relatives experienced the condition as defined, covering relatives by category. From this information, variables were created representing parental history of alcohol, drug, depression, and antisocial behavior problems. The test-retest reliability of AUDADIS family history variables is very good to excellent (Grant et al., 1995; 2003; Hasin et al., 1997).
