The drinker's partner distress scale: an instrument for measuring the distress caused by drinkers to their partners

Although it is generally accepted that the spouses of excessive drinkers experience a range of problems as a result of their partner's alcohol consumption, there have been few attempts at measuring the hardship experienced. Previous attempts have counted only the number of categories of hardship experienced over the previous year and not taken into account the frequency with which these occur or the degree of inconvenience suffered. The Drinker's Partner Distress Scale (DPDS) is proposed as a measure which overcomes these limitations. Two dimensions of alcohol-induced problems are measured; depression and marital discord. Both subscales demonstrated internal consistency, and predictions of convergent and discriminant validity were supported in relation to both subscales.