NCJ Number
157966
Date Published
1990
Length
4 pages
Annotation
Alcohol screening identifies individuals in a patient population who have begun to develop or who are at risk for developing alcoholism; routine use of a standard alcoholism- detection instrument is valuable, because these instruments provide a structured, disciplined, and consistent means to detect individuals at risk.
Abstract
Two types of alcoholism-screening instruments are available. The first type includes self-report questionnaires and structured interviews; the second type includes clinical laboratory tests that can detect pathophysiology associated with excessive alcohol consumption. Both types of screening instruments should be valid (measure what the clinician or researcher is attempting to measure) and yield reliable results (consistency across raters and time). Sensitivity and specificity, key properties of every screening test, are related to validity. Sensitivity refers to the test's accuracy in identifying individuals with an alcohol problem. Specificity refers to the test's effectiveness in identifying people who do not have an alcohol problem. The CAGE questionnaire is a self-report screening instrument that is suited to a busy medical setting in which time is limited for patient interviews. Other alcoholism screening instruments assessed in this paper are the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test, the Self-Administered Alcoholism Screening Test, the Alcohol Dependence Scale, and the T-ACE questionnaire. 34 references