Abstract
Background: Habitual khat use is associated with a host of psychophysiological health consequences.There has been no systematic approach to address the totalitarian aspect of khat use on human health. Here, we present the development and validation of the Mizankhatuse disorder index (MizKUDI)-a tool to assess the health aspects of khat use.
Methods: Habitual khat users (n=409, age=27.0 +/- 4.0 years), who were purposively selected from the list randomly selected houses in Mizan, Ethiopia participated in a cross-sectional study. Interviewer-administered survey tool with MizKUDI, the severity of dependence for khat (SDS-khat), and a semi-structured socio-demographics tool were employed.
Results: MizKUDItotal score did not show a ceiling effect or floor effect. Cronbach's alpha was 0.67. All item-total score correlations were significant (r=0.12-0.64, p<0.01/0.05) indicating adequate Internal homogeneity. The area under the curve, sensitivity, and specificity of MizKUDI with respect to SDS-khat were 0.67 (p<0.001), 70% and 60% (at the cut-off score of 15.5), respectively. The Parallel Analysis and the Cumulative variance rule (>40%) indicated a 3-Component model, while the Kaiser's criteria (Eigenvalue >= 1) and the Scree test suggested a 5-Components of the MizKUDI.
Conclusion: The MizKUDI has satisfactory psychometric validity to screen for the health consequences of the habitual khat use. This finding of this preliminary study may help in further development and exploration of a holistic psychophysiological measure to assess effect habitual khat use.