For the purposes of the current study, respondents were classified as having a lifetime alcohol dependence diagnosis if they had experienced an episode of dependence in the past year or at any time before the past year. Respondents classified with lifetime dependence included those with and without abuse diagnoses. To determine the reliability of alcohol dependence diagnoses established using this approach, an independent test-retest study was conducted in the general population before fielding the full NLAES (Grant et al. 1995). The analysis determined good reliabilities, with kappas of 0.76 and 0.73 for past-year and prior-to-past-year dependence diagnoses, respectively.
