Psychometric Evaluation of the Dutch Version of the Substance Use Recovery Evaluator (SURE-NL)

Charlotte Migchels; Wim van den Brink; Amine Zerrouk; Frieda I A Matthys; Clara De Ruysscher; Dries Debeer; Wouter Vanderplasschen; Cleo Lina Crunelle

doi:10.1159/000541584

Psychometric Evaluation of the Dutch Version of the Substance Use Recovery Evaluator (SURE-NL)

Eur Addict Res. 2024 Nov 8:1-10. doi: 10.1159/000541584. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Charlotte Migchels¹, Wim van den Brink², Amine Zerrouk³, Frieda I A Matthys⁴, Clara De Ruysscher³, Dries Debeer⁵, Wouter Vanderplasschen³, Cleo Lina Crunelle⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel (UZ Brussel), Brussels, Belgium, charlotte.migchels@vub.be.
² Department of Psychiatry, Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
³ Department of Special Needs Education, Ghent University (UGent), Ghent, Belgium.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel (UZ Brussel), Brussels, Belgium.
⁵ Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University (UGent), Ghent, Belgium.

PMID: 39522511
DOI: 10.1159/000541584

Abstract

Introduction: Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are an important source of information that allow for a patient-centered assessment. Outcome measurement of substance use disorder (SUD) treatment traditionally focuses on drug use and deficits in functioning, overlooking other aspects of the personal and dynamic process of recovery. The substance use recovery evaluator (SURE) is a PROM developed with service user input to monitor the recovery journey and assess treatment outcomes in people with SUD. The objective of this study was to examine the validity and reliability of the Dutch translation of the SURE, the SURE-NL, for measuring indicators of recovery in Dutch-speaking patients with SUD.

Methods: The original SURE questionnaire was translated from English to Dutch using forward-backward translation. A total of N = 171 participants were recruited as part of a naturalistic multicenter study in inpatient (N = 149) and outpatient (N = 22) SUD treatment centers. We examined the factorial structure, reliability, and concurrent and discriminant validity of the SURE-NL.

Results: The original 5-factor structure of the SURE showed acceptable fit for the SURE-NL, and internal consistencies of the subscales ranged from 0.61 to 0.76; internal consistency of the total score was 0.83. Concurrent validity was confirmed through positive correlations of the SURE-NL total and subscale scores with the WHOQoL-BREF subscales, but correlations varied depending on subscale and treatment setting, with higher correlations for the outpatient compared to the inpatient subgroup. Discriminant validity was confirmed through low, mostly non-significant correlations between the SURE-NL and the DASS-21.

Conclusions: Although the SURE was originally designed for outpatient settings, our findings in a predominantly inpatient sample indicate that the SURE-NL is suitable for assessing personal recovery and recovery capital in Dutch-speaking Belgian patients with SUD. However, subscales should be used and interpreted with caution. Further research is needed with larger Dutch-speaking outpatient samples and the development of a tailored SURE for inpatient settings should be considered.

Keywords: Patient-reported outcome measures; Psychometric evaluation; Recovery; Substance use disorder; Substance use recovery evaluator.