Penn Alcohol Craving Scale (PACS)
The Penn Alcohol Craving Scale (PACS) is a 5-item questionnaire that measures an individual’s craving to drink alcohol in the past week.
Author / Source: <a href="https://drpatel.karathealth.com/">Tarak Patel, M.D. M.Sc.</a>
The Penn Alcohol Craving Scale (PACS) is a five question instrument, which has been used in several clinical trials at the University of Pennsylvania's Treatment Research Center and was created around 1999. The PACS is a self-report measure that inquires about the frequency, intensity, and duration of craving, the ability to resist drinking, and asks for an overall rating of craving for alcohol over a week.
The PACS proved to have excellent internal consistency, used in multiple outpatient populations globally, and provides initial support for a concise broad-spectrum measure of aggregated alcohol cravings in an Substance Use Disorder (SUD) treatment population. Its design to examine alcohol usage patterns and studies have shown it's ideal for monitoring long-term treatment, but is not sufficient by itself to make a diagnosis by DSM-V for a Substance Use Disorder. The PACS was a strong predictor of subsequent drinking. The PACS score has been studied as a stand-in for the craving criterion with scores greater than 20 were considered to meet diagnostic criteria for craving for a diagnosis of Substance Use Disorder. However there isn't sufficient validated studies to use this cut off score in clinical practice.
- [1]Flannery BA, Volpicelli JR, Pettinati HM. : Psychometric properties of the penn alcohol craving scale. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 1999;23(8):1289-1295.
- [2]Flannery BA, Poole SA, Gallop RJ, Volpicelli JR. : Alcohol craving predicts drinking during treatment: an analysis of three assessment instruments. J Stud Alcohol. 2003;64(1):120-126.
- [3]Costello MJ, Viel C, Li Y, Oshri A, MacKillop J.: Psychometric validation of an adaptation of the Penn Alcohol Craving Scale to assess aggregated drug craving. J Subst Abuse Treat. 2020;119:108127.
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The Penn Alcohol Craving Scale (PACS) is a five question instrument, which has been used in several clinical trials at the University of Pennsylvania's Treatment Research Center and was created around 1999. The PACS is a self-report measure that inquires about the frequency, intensity, and duration of craving, the ability to resist drinking, and asks for an overall rating of craving for alcohol over a week.
The PACS proved to have excellent internal consistency, used in multiple outpatient populations globally, and provides initial support for a concise broad-spectrum measure of aggregated alcohol cravings in an Substance Use Disorder (SUD) treatment population. Its design to examine alcohol usage patterns and studies have shown it's ideal for monitoring long-term treatment, but is not sufficient by itself to make a diagnosis by DSM-V for a Substance Use Disorder. The PACS was a strong predictor of subsequent drinking. The PACS score has been studied as a stand-in for the craving criterion with scores greater than 20 were considered to meet diagnostic criteria for craving for a diagnosis of Substance Use Disorder. However there isn't sufficient validated studies to use this cut off score in clinical practice.
- [1]Flannery BA, Volpicelli JR, Pettinati HM. : Psychometric properties of the penn alcohol craving scale. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 1999;23(8):1289-1295.
- [2]Flannery BA, Poole SA, Gallop RJ, Volpicelli JR. : Alcohol craving predicts drinking during treatment: an analysis of three assessment instruments. J Stud Alcohol. 2003;64(1):120-126.
- [3]Costello MJ, Viel C, Li Y, Oshri A, MacKillop J.: Psychometric validation of an adaptation of the Penn Alcohol Craving Scale to assess aggregated drug craving. J Subst Abuse Treat. 2020;119:108127.