Introduction

Alcohol craving is crucial in the development and relapse of alcohol dependence yet we often find ourselves lacking quick, reliable assessment tools. This study aimed to translate and provide a preliminary psychometric evaluation of the Serbian version of the Penn Alcohol Craving Scale (SPACS) in patients with alcohol dependence.

Material and methods

The study included 54 patients undergoing inpatient or outpatient treatment for alcohol dependence. Following back-translation and expert-committee review, participants completed a socio-demographic questionnaire, the SPACS, the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II). Reliability (internal consistency, test–retest) and convergent validity (correlation, partial correlation, regression) were assessed.

Results

SPACS demonstrated high internal consistency (Cronbach’s a = 0.964) and high test–retest reliability (r = 0.980, p < 0.001). SPACS scores correlated significantly with AUDIT (r = 0.773) and BDI-II scores (r = 0.543, both p < 0.001); the BDI-II association remained significant after controlling for AUDIT (partial r = 0.360, p = 0.008). SPACS scores were negatively correlated with duration of abstinence (r = −0.649, p < 0.001), though this association was attenuated in multivariate analysis accounting for AUDIT and BDI-II scores.

Discussions

These findings support the reliability and convergent validity of the SPACS; however, the modest sample size precluded factor-analytic evaluation, and results should be regarded as preliminary.

Conclusions

The SPACS is a brief, reliable instrument with promising convergent validity for assessing alcohol craving in Serbian-speaking patients with alcohol dependence. Further validation in larger samples is needed before broader clinical and research use.