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Social workers often need a larger range of assessment scales to be used in education, research, and practice. The Higher Power Relationship Scale (HPRS) is a new brief instrument designed for easy administration and scoring that may be of use to social work educators, researchers, and practitioners, particularly those who work in the field of addictions. This paper describes the HPRS; provides information about its administration, scoring, and interpretation; and describes the initial research conducted to validate the scale. The results clearly indicate that the scale ( I )has good reliability, (2) is strong enough in terms of its measurement error traits to recommend it for use in educational, research, and clinical settings, and (3) appears to be acceptable in terms of its content and construct validity. Preliminary use in chemically dependent settings illustrated the value of the scale in understanding respondents' relationships with a higher power and Alcoholics Anonymous affiliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing body of research evidence supports the use of 12-step program affiliation as an effective adjunct and aftercare for formal treatment. Recently, three brief (9- or 10-item) measures of affiliation have been developed. However, the brief scales are difficult to interpret, and the question of exactly what is affiliation (or disaffiliation) remains unclear. This analysis examines the question of what is the essence of affiliation vs. disaffiliation. Data from the Project MATCH 1-year posttreatment Alcoholics Anonymous Involvement (AAI) scale (N = 1506) are used to identify the most salient items of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) affiliation predicting 1-year posttreatment drinking outcomes. Analysis using stepwise regression suggests that a three-item solution can explain a similar amount of variance in the proportion of days abstinent in months 9 through 12 posttreatment, as does using the nine items. These three “core items predicting recovery” include AA attendance, sum of steps completed, and identifying self as an AA member. As an affiliation composite scale, these three items are easier to interpret and administer than the full AAI scale, and when combined, possess adequate reliability (α = 0.72). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]