Cocaine: URICA

(University of Rhode Island Change Assessment)

This questionnaire is to help us improve services. Each statement describes how a person might feel when starting therapy or approaching problems in their lives. Please indicate the extent to which you tend to agree or disagree with each statement. In each case, make your choice in terms of how you feel right now, not what you have felt in the past or would like to feel. For all the statements that refer to your “problem”, answer in terms of what you write on the “PROBLEM” line below. And “here” refers to the place of treatment or the program.

There are FIVE possible responses to each of the items in the questionnaire:

1 = Strongly Disagree
2 = Disagree
3 = Undecided
4 = Agree
5 = Strongly Agree

1.	As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have any problems that need changing.
2.	I think I might be ready for some self-improvement.
3.	I am doing something about the problems that had been bothering me.
4.	It might be worthwhile to work on my problem.
5.	I’m not the problem one. It doesn’t make much sense for me to be here.
6.	It worries me that I might slip back on a problem I have already changed, so I am here to seek help.
7.	I am finally doing some work on my problem.
8.	I’ve been thinking that I might want to change something about myself.
9.	I have been successful in working on my problem but I’m not sure I can keep up the effort on my own.
10.	At times my problem is difficult, but I’m working on it.
11.	Being here is pretty much a waste of time for me because the problem doesn’t have to do with me.
12.	I’m hoping this place will help me to better understand myself.
13.	I guess I have faults, but there’s nothing that I really need to change.
14.	I am really working hard to change.
15.	I have a problem and I really think I should work at it.
16.	I’m not following through with what I had already changed as well as I had hoped, and I’m here to prevent a relapse of the problem.
17.	Even though I’m not always successful in changing, I am at least working on my problem.
18.	I thought once I had resolved my problem I would be free of it, but sometimes I still find myself struggling with it.
19.	I wish I had more ideas on how to solve the problem.
20.	I have started working on my problems but I would like help.
21.	Maybe this place will be able to help me.
22.	I may need a boost right now to help me maintain the changes I’ve already made.
23.	I may be part of the problem, but I don’t really think I am.
24.	I hope that someone here will have some good advice for me.
25.	Anyone can talk about changing; I’m actually doing something about it.
26.	All this talk about psychology is boring. Why can’t people just forget about their problems?
27.	I’m here to prevent myself from having a relapse of my problem.
28.	It is frustrating, but I feel I might be having a recurrence of a problem I thought I had resolved.
29.	I have worries but so does the next guy. Why spend time thinking about them?
30.	I am actively working on my problem.
31.	I would rather cope with my faults than try to change them.

Scoring

Precontemplation items	1, 5, 11, 13, 23, 26, 29, 31
Contemplation items	2, 4, 8, 12, 15, 19, 21, 24
Action items	3, 7, 10, 14, 17, 20, 25, 30
Maintenance items	6, 9, 16, 18, 22, 27, 28, 32

Description

The scale is designed to be a continuous measure. Thus, subjects can score high on more than one of the four stages.

Because the scale is still being validated, it is only available for research purposes. Therefore, to date there have been no cut-off norms established to determine what constitutes high, medium or low on a particular stage. And, again, the stages are considered to be continous and not discreet.

In one analysis, we have done cluster analyses which have yielded smaller, more homogenous groups of subjects. Stage scores (i.e., means on each set of 8 items for each subject) have been converted to standard score (i.e., T-scores: mean=50, standard deviation=10). The cluster analysis was run on the standard scores of all 155 subjects, producing nine cluster profiles. For your scoring purposes, you could determine subjects’ stage score (means, T-scores) and compare those to our nine profiles. Or you could do a cluster analysis and find out what profiles emerge from your sample. If you need a discrete measure of the stages for you research, you would have to use a nominal scale for the particular problem you are assessing. An example of such a discrete measure is reported in our article “Stages and Processes of Self-Change of Smoking: Toward an Integrated Model of Change”, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (1983), 51, 390-395.

We would appreciate feedback and would be interested in your findings. We are expecting to have more cut-off scores for each of the stages in the near future.

References

McConnaughy, E.N., Prochaska, J.O., & Velicer, W.F. (1983). Stages of change in psychotherapy: Measurement and sample profiles. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 20, 368-375.