Calculations and Scoring for the Australian and UK SAQ
The Australian and UK expanded version of the SAQ includes a section concerning drug use not found on the original SAQ. The expanded version calculates alcohol consumption in terms of Grams per day or Units(drinks) per week as defined by Australia and the UK. This page gives the criteria for recoding and the calculations for alcohol consumption in terms of Grams and Units as discussed in the journal articles using this version of the SAQ. For a copy of the Australian/UK version of the SAQ, go to the Questionnaire page.
Doctoral and Masters Students: For reliability and validity of this questionnaire look at the 1994 and 1977 articles concerning the reliability of the SAQ found on the permanent IUScholarworks sites: http://hdl.handle.net/2022/17337; http://hdl.handle.net/2022/17154; http://hdl.handle.net/2022/17181.
The following is the SPSS coding for the variables and calculations for Mean Units per week (drinks) and mean Grams (absolute alcohol) per day as used in the survey of Scottish university students in 1994 and Queensland, Australia students in 1980 respectively.
Look at the space numbers on the questionnaire to determine the variable name for the item in that space. Most are self-explanatory. For example FBEER equals frequency of beer consumed on the average and QBEER = quantity of beer consumed on the average.
SPSS variable list for the expanded SAQ
TITLE "SPSS PROGRAM FOR DATA USING AUSTRALIAN/UK SAQ VERSION" DATA LIST FILE=put your data file name here.dat records=1 /SEX 9 ETHNIC 10 AGE 11-12 FACULTY 13-14 YEAR 15 RELIG 16 IMP 17 LIVE 18 FBEER 19 FWINE 20 FSPIRIT 21 TOBAC 22 PAINMED 23 COFFEE 24 TEA 25 COCAINE 26 AMPH 27 BARBS 28 POT 29 TRANQ 30 HEROIN 31 ANIT 32 LAS 33 MDA 34 OPIATE 35 QBEER 36-37 QWINE 38-39 QSPIRIT 40-41 QCOFFEE 42-43 QTEA 44-45 QPAIN 46-47 QPOT 48-49 CIGS 50-51 WKBEER 52-53 WKWINE 54-55 WKSPIRIT 56-57 HANGOR 58 VOMIT 59 DCA 60 DCK 61 DCW 62 CLASS 63 CUT 64 MISSED 65 DWI 66 CRITIC 67 LAW 68 JOB 69 LOWGRADE 70 ADMIN 71FIGHT 72 PROB 73 DAMAGE 74 GAME 75 RAPE 76 COMMENT spaces 1-8 used for other demographic coding such as city, term,
UK-Calculations
COMMENT SPSS RECODING AND CALCULATIONS TO OBTAIN UNITS OF TOTAL AMOUNT OF ALCOHOL CONSUMED PER WEEK. COMMENT MEANT is the mean drinks OR UNITS per week of total amount of alcohol consumed per person. This is used for MANOVA, ANOVA, T-tests, etc. A RECODING from the value on the questionnaire in terms of number of times per week (7=every day, 3 or 4 times a week, etc) must first be done. It is then multiplied by the average drinks consumed as noted by the subject for each beverage and then summed to get total amount consumed per week. This is also used for tobacco and the other drugs. RECODE FBEER TO OPIATES (1=7.0) (2=3.5) (3=.5) (4=.12) (5,6,7=0) COMPUTE MEANB=0 COMPUTE MEANW=0 COMPUTE MEANL=0 COMPUTE MEANT=0 COMPUTE MEANB = QBEER*FBEER COMPUTE MEANW = QWINE*FWINE COMPUTE MEANL = QSPIRIT*FSPIRIT COMPUTE MEANT= SUM(MEANB,MEANW,MEANL) COMMENT SPSS CODING AND CALCULATIONS TO GET QUANTIFY/FREQUENCY INDEX FOR PERCENT OF SAMPLE WHO CONSUME A PARTICULAR RANGE OF DRINKS PER WEEK This is used for crosstabs (chi-square analyses). IF (MEANT EQ 0)MEANQF=1 IF (MEANT GT 0 AND MEANT LE 7)MEANQF=2 IF (MEANT GT 7 AND MEANT LE 14)MEANQF=3 IF (MEANT GT 14 AND MEANT LE 21)MEANQF=4 IF (MEANT GT 21 AND MEANT LE 28)MEANQF=5 IF (MEANT GT 28)MEANQF=6
Calculations for 1980s Australian Study
COMMENT RECODING AND CALCULATIONS TO GET MEAN GRAMS PER DAY RECODE FBEER TO OPIATE (1=365) (2=182) (3=78) (4=34) (5=3.5) (6=1) (7=0) COMPUTE MEANB=0 COMPUTE MEANW=0 COMPUTE MEANL=0 COMPUTE MEANT=0 COMPUTE MEANB = QBEER*FBEER*10.4/365 COMPUTE MEANW = QWINE*FWINE*8.2/365 COMPUTE MEANL = QSPIRIT*FSPIRIT*9.2/365 COMPUTE MEANT= SUM(MEANB,MEANW,MEANL) COMMENT SPSS CODING AND CALCULATIONS TO GET QUANTIFY/FREQUENCY INDEX FOR PERCENT OF SAMPLE WHO CONSUME A PARTICULAR RANGE OF GRAMS OF ALCOHOL PER DAY. This is used for crosstabs (chi-square analyses). IF (MEANT EQ 0)MEANG=1 IF (MEANT GT 0 AND MEANT LE 19)MEANG=2 IF (MEANT GT 20 AND MEANT LE 39)MEANG=3 IF (MEANT GT 40 AND MEANT LE 59)MEANG=4 IF (MEANT GT 60 AND MEANT LE 79)MEANG=5 IF (MEANT GT 80)MEANG=6
(c) copyright, RUTH C. ENGS, Professsor, BLOOMINGTON, IN 47405, 1977-2003.