AUDIT(Alcohol use disorders identification test) is effective in identifying problem drinking in primary care. However, there has been no research in Korea for testing its usefulness in university students whose drinking characteristic is different fr...
AUDIT(Alcohol use disorders identification test) is effective in identifying problem drinking in primary care. However, there has been no research in Korea for testing its usefulness in university students whose drinking characteristic is different from adults. This study purposed to evaluate the validity of AUDIT in identifying problem drinking among Korean university students.
The subjects were 235 university students who had visited the Health Service Center of Chungnam National University for primary medical service. All subjects
had a diagnostic interview for the presence of at-risk drinking and alcohol use
disorder. At-risk drinking was defined according to the criteria of the National
Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Alcohol use disorder was diagnosed
by the criteria of DSM?]IV TR. In case a student met the criteria for at-risk drinking or alcohol use disorder, he or she was classified into problem drinking. At the same time, a survey was conducted using three screening tools: AUDIT, CAGE, and CUGE. The Areas under ROC curve [AUROC] of the questionnaires to the results of interviews were compared.
Among the subjects, 71 (30.6%) were in the state of at-risk drinking and 46 (19.6%) had alcohol use disorder, and 75 (31.9%) were classified into problem drinkers. For identification of problem drinking, AUROC (95% CI) of AUDIT was 0.970 (0.947?]0.993) in men and 0.989 (0.976?]1.002) in women. For CAGE, it was 0.650 (0.548?]0.752) in men and 0.747 (0.630?]0.864) in women. For CUGE, it was 0.689 (0.589?]0.788) in men and 0.745 (0.630?]0.861) in women. The optimal cut-off score of AUDIT for identifying problem drinking was 8 or higher in men and 6 or higher in women.
Above results suggest that in identifying university students?f problem drinking, AUDIT is most effective and the cut-off score is 8 or higher in men and 6 or higher in women.