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Supplemental Appendix
Supplemental Appendix. Scoring Key for the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test-Consumption (AUDIT-C)
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- Supplemental data: Appendix - PDF file, 1 page, 188 KB
The Article in Brief
Clinician Suspicion of an Alcohol Problem: An Observational Study From the AAFP National Research Network
Daniel C. Vinson , and colleagues
Background In clinical practice, detection of alcohol problems often relies on clinicians' suspicion instead of use of a screening instrument. This study assesses the sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values of clinician suspicion compared with screen-detected alcohol problems.
What This Study Found In this study, primary care clinicians missed most (more than 70 percent) of patients with an alcohol problem when they relied on clinical suspicion instead of using a screening instrument. In a sample of 1,699 patients, 171 patients (10 percent) screened positive for hazardous drinking and 64 patients (4 percent) screened positive for harmful drinking using validated screening instruments. Clinicians suspected either hazardous or harmful drinking in only 81 of those patients (5 percent). Conversely, when clinicians suspected a patient had an alcohol problem, they were correct 98 percent of the time.
Implications
- These findings, the authors conclude, support the routine use of a screening tool to supplement clinicians' suspicions about alcohol problems.