AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test)

Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT)

• developed in 1989 by the World Health Organization for use in clinical settings to screen for people at risk of developing alcohol problems.
• was revised in 1992 and 2001 after widespread international use
• instrument consists of 10 items intended to cover three domains of hazardous drinking:
• (1) quantity and frequency of alcohol use (three items)
• (2) dependence symptoms (three items)
• (3) other problems from alcohol use (four items)
• AUDIT has been shown to perform well as a screening instrument for hazardous alcohol consumption, harmful alcohol use and dependence
• it is regarded as the 'gold standard' screening questionnaire for detecting hazardous and harmful drinking
  • AUDIT can detect 92% of genuinely hazardous and harmful drinkers and excludes 93% of those who are not
• been found to have higher sensitivity and specificity than other diagnostic screening instruments such as the CAGE and MAST

Categories of risk in relation to alcohol consumption may be defined by scores used in the AUDIT

• 1–7 - low-risk drinking
• 8–15 - hazardous drinking
• 16–19 - harmful drinking
• 20+ - possible dependence.

Several shorter versions have been developed since the full AUDIT questionnaire has been considered too lengthy for use in routine practice.

• these comprise between one and four questions
• generally they are less accurate than the full AUDIT and do not clearly differentiate between hazardous, harmful and possibly dependent drinking (1,2).

Reference:

• (1) National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) 2010. Alcohol-use disorders: preventing harmful drinking
• (2) The National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA) 2006. Review of the Effectiveness of Treatment for Alcohol Problems