The Addiction Severity Index (ASI) is a semi-structured instrument used in a face-to face patient interview conducted by a clinician, researcher, or trained technician. A. Thomas McLellan, Ph.D. and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania developed it in 1980. The ASI covers seven (7) important areas of a patient’s life: medical, employment/support, drug and alcohol use, legal, family/social, and psychiatric. The instrument is designed to obtain lifetime information about problem behaviors as well as focusing specifically on the 30 days prior to assessment. The ASI has high reliability and validity, as confirmed in studies published in leading journals. It is a widely used addiction assessment tool throughout the United States and other countries.

“ASI - Original Version” vs. “ASI - Clinical Training Version”
There is no difference in the content between the Original and Clinical Training Version, however there is a great deal of difference between them with regards to their formatting. The ASI “Original” Version did not allow much room for comments, the print was small and there were three columns of questions per page. The ASI “Clinical Training Version” allows a great deal more room for comments, the print is larger and there is only one column of questions down the left side and one column of lines for comments down the right side. While this ads several pages to the actual instrument it has been received extremely well by all those who had previously been using the “ASI Original Version.” In addition it provides helpful hints underneath many of the questions to remind the interviewer of either the intention of the question and or the coding convention. These reminders have been helpful to many ASI interviewees new and experienced. ASITRAINING.com uses the Clinical Training Version at all of it’s trainings and encourages the use of the clinical training version post training. Many participants and agencies prefer this version to the original version. Sample

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“ASI - Lite” vs. “Standard ASI”
It is a very interesting phenomenon that the two most common suggestions regarding the ASI are “it takes too long and it needs questions added to it” It is in response to this criticism that the ASI Lite was developed. The ASI Lite is a shortened version of the standard Fifth Edition Addiction Severity Index (ASI), developed by A. Thomas McLellan, Ph.D. and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania. The ASI Lite was developed in early 1997, in response to numerous requests from the substance abuse field. The primary difference is that the interviewers severity ratings were removed from each section and a 22 other questions were removed and the family history “grid” has been omitted. However all questions that are necessary to compute composite scores remain intact. However clinicians and interviewers still ask many of the questions that were officially removed in the ASI Lite Version.

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“ASI - Follow Up Version”
There are two differently formatted instruments to do follow up ASI interviews, 1. An interviewer uses a full ASI and by paying attention to the questions that are either circled and or circled and have an asterisk next to them the interviewer only asks those questions with the circle around them and rephrases the ones with a circle and asterisk.

While this is not difficult to do interviewers new and experienced are often confused when using the standard ASI version with the circles and asterisks. Therefore a second differently formatted ASI follow up version was created. This version has removed all of the questions that are not asked during a follow up interview from the form. This helps prevent the new and or experienced interviewer from asking clients questions unnecessarily.

ASI Lite Clinical Factors Version

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ASI - JCV: Designed to meet JCAHO requirements

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The ASI is also available in Spanish

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