Two Brief Alcohol-Screening Tests From the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT)

Abstract

The standard and sex-specific AUDIT-Cs are effective screening tests for past-year hazardous drinking and/or active alcohol abuse or dependence in female patients in a VA study.

Factors Underlying Quality Problems with Alcohol Screening Prompted by a Clinical Reminder in Primary Care: A Multi-site Qualitative Study

“…11 Consistent with implementation of other clinical services, 12,13 the VA used a combination of a national performance measure and an electronic clinical reminder to implement alcohol screening. Specifically, the VA implemented a national performance measure incentivizing annual screening with the validated Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test -Consumption (AUDIT-C) questionnaire [14][15][16][17][18] and disseminated an associated clinical reminder ( Fig. 1), to be embedded in the electronic medical record.…”

“…The AUDIT-C clinical reminder was used 1.5 million times in its first year (2004), and over 24 million screens have been documented with the clinical reminder in the last five years. 9,10 However, while the AUDIT-C has high sensitivity for identifying unhealthy alcohol use based on validation studies, 14,16,18 the sensitivity of alcohol screening performed in VA clinics appears to be lower than expected. 19,20 Specifically, a previous study found that 61 % of patients who screened positive for unhealthy alcohol use on confidential mailed surveys screened negative when screened clinically.…”

PTSD Risk and Mental Health Care Engagement in a Multi-War Era Community Sample of Women Veterans

“…Need factors included: positive screening tests for depression (using the MHI-5), anxiety (using the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 2 screener), and hazardous alcohol use (using the Audit-C with a cut-point of 3), disability status (yes versus no), and overall health status. [19][20][21] We also measured characteristics of healthcare use, including the number of healthcare visits in the prior 12 months and the system for healthcare use (dichotomized as any VA versus non-VA only).…”

The Air Force Deployment Transition Center: Assessment of Program Structure, Process, and Outcomes

“…In the report, the outcomes of airmen who attended the DTC in the first six months after it officially opened on July 1, 2010 (N = 827), were compared with the outcomes of a propensity-score matched sample of airmen who did not attend the DTC (N = 13,679). Six-month outcomes included routine screening questions from the PDHRA questionnaire, including the Primary Care PTSD Screen (PC-PTSD) (Prins et al, 2004); the AUDIT Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test), a screener for problematic alcohol use (Babor and Grant, 1989;Bradley et al, 2003); and the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-2), a screener for depression (Kroenke, Spitzer, and Williams, 2003). For the PC-PTSD, the recommended cutoff score for screening is endorsement of at least two of the four items (Prins et al, 2004).…”