Behaviors & Attitudes Drinking & Driving Scale (BADDS)

Abstract

The Behaviors & Attitudes Drinking & Driving Scale (BADDS) is a 43-item psychological scale designed to measure and identify risky attitudes and behaviors associated with drinking and driving. Administered typically in a paper-and-pencil format, the BADDS serves as a valuable tool for evaluating the efficacy of both prevention and intervention programs targeting impaired driving.

The instrument is structured around five distinct subscales: Rationalizations for Drinking and Driving (RD), Lenient Attitudes toward Drinking and Driving (LA), Likelihood of Drinking and Driving (LD), Drinking and Driving Behaviors (DB), and Riding Behaviors with a Drinking Driver (RB). It is intended for individuals aged 18 and older, requiring a minimum reading level of 3.1 and taking approximately 10 minutes to complete. The BADDS is frequently employed in a pretest/posttest design for clinical and educational assessment.

Keywords

Drinking and Driving, DUI, DWI, Attitudes, Behaviors, Rationalizations, Substance Use Disorder, Psychometric Scale, Prevention Programs, Internal consistency reliability.

Authors

Not specified in source material.

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Purpose

The primary purpose of the BADDS is twofold: first, to quantitatively identify the specific risky attitudes and behaviors an individual holds regarding alcohol consumption and vehicle operation; and second, to provide a metric for assessing the effectiveness and impact of educational, clinical, or therapeutic interventions aimed at reducing impaired driving incidents. The scale allows clinicians and researchers to categorize individual risk levels (low, moderate, or high) across several domains relevant to drunk driving propensity.

The instrument was originally developed, alongside its precursor, the Attitudes on Drinking and Driving Scale (ADDS), specifically to evaluate the impact of educational tools, such as the Fatal Vision goggles, within alcohol prevention programs. The ease of administration and scoring makes it highly suitable for rapid assessment in both large group settings and individual clinical interviews.

Construct

The BADDS measures the complex psychological construct encompassing the propensity toward, and justification of, impaired driving. This construct is operationalized through five core subscales, which collectively capture cognitive, affective, and behavioral components related to alcohol use and vehicle operation:

• Rationalizations for Drinking and Driving (RD): Measures the reasons or justifications individuals use to minimize the risk or severity of driving after consuming alcohol. Item development for this subscale was based on typical reasons people give to justify drinking and driving.
• Lenient Attitudes toward Drinking and Driving (LA): Assesses the degree to which an individual holds permissive or non-judgmental views regarding drunk driving.
• Likelihood of Drinking and Driving (LD): Measures the perceived probability or self-reported intention to engage in impaired driving behaviors.
• Drinking and Driving Behaviors (DB): Quantifies the frequency of actual driving after drinking within a specified timeframe (the past month).
• Riding Behaviors with a Drinking Driver (RB): Quantifies the frequency of riding as a passenger with someone who has been drinking, indicating acceptance of environmental risk.

Validity

Evidence supporting the validity of the BADDS is presented primarily through aggregated data demonstrating expected correlations between scale scores and drinking status, as well as substance misuse indicators. Nondrinkers consistently exhibited lower BADDS subscale scores compared to drinkers. Furthermore, significant differences were observed between these groups regarding their perceptions of safe drinking and driving limits, indicating the scale’s ability to differentiate between these populations.

Convergent validity is supported by significant and anticipated correlations between higher BADDS scores and outcomes on the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory-3 (SASSI-3), particularly concerning scales of substance misuse and the percentage of participants testing positive for a Substance Use Disorder. For example, 87% of participants categorized with high scores on the RD subscale were identified as drinkers. Additionally, individuals categorized in the high-risk classifications of the BADDS subscales showed an increased likelihood of having driven under the influence of substances other than alcohol, reinforcing the scale’s utility in identifying generalized risk behavior.

Reliability

The reliability of the BADDS is supported by estimates of both internal consistency reliability and test-retest reliability documented in the test manual. However, the documentation supporting these claims requires cautious interpretation, as seven cited references include four unpublished raw data reports and one unpublished master’s thesis. This reliance on non-peer-reviewed or unpublished data suggests a need for further published studies to solidify the scale’s reliability claims.

It is also noted that one of the remaining published articles supporting reliability omitted the Lenient Attitudes toward Drinking & Driving (LA) scale from its analysis, meaning reliability evidence for this specific subscale may be incomplete or less robust than the others.

Factor Analysis

The BADDS currently utilizes five established subscales based on theoretical development; however, the source commentary indicates that a comprehensive factor structure analysis is still warranted. Additional studies should be undertaken to rigorously examine the dimensional structure of the BADDS, expand the standardization groups, and provide empirical justification for the three levels of subscale classifications (low, moderate, high) used in scoring and interpretation.

Caution is advised when interpreting results from some psychometric studies related to the scale, as large sample sizes (up to 1,850 participants) sometimes yielded statistically significant results based on very low shared variance estimates (as low as 2%) or low effect sizes from chi-square analyses, suggesting that statistical significance does not always equate to clinical significance.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report questionnaire / Psychological assessment tool.

Format: Paper-and-pencil test. Takes approximately 10 minutes to complete. Designed for pretest/posttest applications.

Language Available: English (fluency required).

Population Group: Clinical, educational, and general adult populations. Must be 18 years or older, though a high school group was included in standardization.

Age Group: 18 years or older.

Population Details: Requires a minimum reading grade level of 3.1. Standardization samples included college students, adult DUI offenders, adult traffic court groups, and adult Substance Use Disorder treatment groups. The samples were heavily weighted toward White participants (87-94%). Men consistently scored higher than women on the RD, LA, and LD subscales.

Test Methodology: The 43-item questionnaire includes five demographic items, 16 items assessing alcohol use history, and items composing the five subscales. The RD, LA, and LD scales use a 5-point rating scale. The DB and RB scales are calculated based on frequency questions regarding behaviors in the past month. Scoring uses a double-sided profile sheet for pretest and posttest comparison, allowing for calculation of score differences and overall percent improvement for group assessments.

Keywords

Alcohol prevention, DUI intervention, Impaired driving, Attitudes, Behaviors, SASSI-3, Psychometrics, Test-retest reliability, Fatal Vision, Risk Assessment.

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Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not specified in source material.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not specified in source material.

Correspondence Address: Not specified in source material.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Permissions: The test authors emphasize that clinical or educational decisions should not be based solely on BADDS data; results must be integrated with information from other sources. Website and telephone support are available for scoring and interpretation.

Fee: Not specified in source material.

Test Year: Not specified in source material.

Reference’s

The following references were provided by the reviewer:

• Engs, R. C. (1975). The Student Alcohol Questionnaire. Bloomington, IN: Department of Health and Safety Education, Indiana University.
• Jacobson, N.S., Roberts, L.J., Berns, S. B.,&McGlinchey,J.B.(1999). Methods of defining and determining clinical significance of treatment effects: Description, application, and alternatives. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 67, 300-309.
• Fos=, S. L.,&Co.,e,J. D.(1995). Validity issues in clinical assessment. Psychological Assessment, 7, 248-260.
• I lingson, R., Hcen:n, T., Winter, M., & WcschJer, H. (2005). Magnitude of alcohol-related mortality and morbidity among U.S. college students ages 18-24: Changes from 1998-2001. Annual Review of Public Health, 26, 259-279.
• Hingson, R.,& Winter,M.(2003). Epidemiology and consequences of drinking and driving. Alcohol Research & Health, 27, 63-78.
• Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychometric theory (3rd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
• Vogt, D. S., King, D. W., & King, L. A (2004). Focus groups in psychological assessment; Enhancing content validity by consulting members of the target population. Psychological Assessment, 16, 231-243.

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Items of the Behaviors & Attitudes Drinking & Driving Scale (BADDS)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

The specific item wording for the 43-item scale is not provided in the source content. The items are structured across the following five subscales, plus supplementary items:

• Rationalizations for Drinking and Driving (RD)
• Lenient Attitudes toward Drinking and Driving (LA)
• Likelihood of Drinking and Driving (LD)
• Drinking and Driving Behaviors (DB)
• Riding Behaviors with a Drinking Driver (RB)
• Sixteen additional items assessing alcohol use, awareness, and history.
• Five items collecting demographic data (gender, age, race/ethnicity, highest grade completed, and marital status).