Italian Validation of Assessment of Recovery Capital Scale in Clinical Population with Alcohol and Drugs Use Disorder

Background
Recovery Capital refers to internal and external resources that facilitate recovery from alcohol and drug use disorder and it is a construct for assessing individual progress on a recovery journey. The Assessment of Recovery Capital (ARC) is a brief and easy to administer questionnaire used to measure recovery capital and may be usefully employed as an outcome monitoring instrument for substance dependent patients in and out of treatment. The present study aims to translate and validate the ARC in an Italian clinical sample.
MethodsThe participants were 100 patients who attended out-patient treatments. They were evaluated with the adapted version of ARC, WHOQOL-bref (WHO, 1998) in its Italian translation and the subscales relating to physical health, psychological health and quality of life of the questionnaire Treatment Outcome Profile (TOP). ResultsCronbach alpha was 0.90. Correlations between ARC total score, with WHOQOL-BREF (WHO, 1998)and TOP questionnaire and their subscales, ranged from .43 to .71. ARC means were significantly different according to the presence of stable housing (p=.003), meaningful activities (p=.014), abstinence (p=.001), and comorbidity (p=.009). The ARC scale resulted as reliable and valid.
ConclusionThe analyses showed that the Italian validation of ARC scale is a valid and reliable tool to measure recovery capital. The spread of ARC in public addiction services could constitute a significant advance in the field of addiction recovery, in alignment with the emerging recovery-oriented approach to addiction recovery care.