141st APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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295348
Assessing the validity of a single-item assessing drunkenness


Sunday, November 3, 2013

Adam Barry, PhD, Health Education & Behavior, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Beth Chaney, PhD, MCHES, Health Education and Behavior, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Michael Stellefson, PhD, Department of Health Education & Behavior, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Background: To simplify the screening process to identify problem drinking, researchers have developed single-item, quantity-based instruments. Quantity-based items, however, suffer from several limitations. Therefore, we sought to determine whether a non-quantity-based single item assessing drunkenness would be able to identify those who exhibited signs of hazardous alcohol use, as determined by AUDIT-C scores.

Methods: Between September and November of 2011, the alcohol-related behaviors of 1,062 self-identified current drinkers were assessed with self-report measures (i.e., AUDIT-C, and one item assessing frequency of drunkenness) in addition to corresponding biologic samples (i.e., BrAC samples). We assessed the concurrent validity of the single item to identify hazardous alcohol use established via gender-based AUDIT-C thresholds. Convergent validity of the single-item was assessed by determining its relationship to BrAC levels.

Results: The single item accounted for.791 of the area under the ROC curve for hazardous alcohol use (p < 0.001). When employing a cut-off of 1, the single-item question was 95.9% sensitive in identifying hazardous alcohol use.

Conclusion: The results reported herein highlight the validity (both concurrent and convergent) and potential utility of a non-quantity based single-item alcohol screen for assessing drunkenness. Overall, the benefits of this single item include (a) ease of implementation, (b) ease of interpretation (i.e., no need to perform mathematics in order to score), (c) brevity, and (d) overall ability to accurately detect hazardous drinking. Additional research is warranted to confirm the utility of this one-item drunkenness measure to capture risk of injury and hazardous drinking.

Learning Areas:

Assessment of individual and community needs for health education
Clinical medicine applied in public health
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
Explain the limitations associated with quantity-based measures of alcohol use. Describe the specificity and sensitivity associated with the single-item assessing drunkenness.

Keyword(s): Alcohol, Risk Assessment

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Dr. Barry’s research focuses on alcohol assessment and measurement. His work has been funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and appeared in scholarly outlets such as Addictive Behaviors, American Journal of Public Health, and Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. Moreover, national media outlets such as CNN, New York Times, and NBC News, have featured Barry’s work. He is currently an executive editor for the Journal of American College Health.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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