Substance use disorders cause problems for countless individuals and society as a whole. Alcohol and drug abuse often underlie difficulties presented as emotional, medical, family, school, or legal problems. These problems are not likely to be resolved until the underlying substance use problem is dealt with. Yet many affected individuals are unable or unwilling to acknowledge their misuse of psychoactive substances, and many human service providers lack the resources to conduct comprehensive diagnostic assessments for substance use disorders on every client in their practices.

Dr. Glenn A. Miller developed the SASSI in response to the need for a screening measure that could identify individuals with a high probability of having a substance use disorder, even if those individuals do not acknowledge substance misuse or symptoms associated with it.

The SASSI is brief, easy to administer, and objectively scored. A client can answer the questionnaire in less than fifteen minutes. The SASSI can be scored and interpreted in a minute or two.

Thus, clients with a high probability of having a substance use disorder can be identified and helped by employee assistance programs, vocational counselors, psychotherapists, medical personnel, criminal justice programs, and other human service providers.

The SASSI is used by human service practitioners throughout the United States and Canada, as well as other countries and is used to help over a million people every year. For information on the accuracy of our screening tools please visit https://sassi.com/reliability-validity/.

Extracted from: 
Lazowski, L. E., Kimmell, K.S., & Baker, S.L. (2016). The Adult Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory-4 (SASSI-4) User Guide & Manual. Springville, IN: The SASSI Institute.