A psychophysical task to quantify smoking cessation-induced irritability: The Reactive Irritability Scale (RIS)

A psychophysical rating scale using magnitude estimation was developed as a tool to quantify irritability as one index of drug withdrawal. The scale measures reactive irritability by using environmental sounds as probes. Three studies are described in which target and reference stimuli are selected, tested for reliability, and presented to cigarette smokers abstaining from smoking, cigarette smokers who are not abstaining, and nonsmokers. This reactive irritability scale (RIS) was found to have test/re-test reliability and content validity. The RIS significantly differentiated abstaining smokers from nonsmokers and from smokers allowed to smoke, whereas the commonly used self-report measures of irritability failed to distinguish the two groups of smokers. By measuring irritability as a type of reactivity rather than as a static attribute, a different type of irritability is measured than that which is assessed by self-report questionnaires. The RIS should be used in the study of withdrawal from nicotine and other drugs of abuse.