The goals of the current investigation were to test the concurrent and predictive validities of the nicotine-applicable criteria offered by Hughes [9] and the negative reinforcement model criteria against the validity of the full DSM-IV criteria for nicotine dependence. Data were drawn from three randomized clinical trials of tobacco dependence. Regression analyses were used to compare the subset criteria offered by Hughes and the negative reinforcement model to the full DSM-IV criteria in predicting baseline smoking-related characteristics (e.g. cigarettes smoked per day) and treatment outcome (i.e. smoking status). If either of the two subsets of specific criteria encapsulates the key features of tobacco dependence, then these criteria should explain a significant and robust amount of the variance in baseline smoking-related characteristics and treatment outcome, and the remaining DSM-IV criteria should provide for a marginal addition in explained variance. If neither subset encompasses the core characteristics of tobacco dependence, then we should find that the addition of the remaining DSM-IV criteria provide for a marked increase in explained variance.
