SCREENING FOR ALCOHOL MISUSE IN OLDER-PEOPLE

Objectives. To evaluate whether the CAGE, MAST-G or an abnormally high MCV are effective screening instruments for alcohol misuse and if not to devise a new instrument. Design. Questionnaire survey of randomly selected patients. Setting. Acute admission wards of two district gene ral hospitals. Period. 9 months. Subjects. Randomly selected patients, aged 65 and over, admitted as emergencies, Main outcome measures. Exc essive alcohol intake, alcohol dependence. Results. The sensitivities of the CAGE, MAST-G and an abnormally high MCV for excess alcohol inta ke and alcohol abuse are low, ranging from 0.13 to 0.54. Conclusion. T he results confirm previous UK studies which indicate that the CAGE an d an abnormally high MCV are poor screening instruments for alcohol mi suse in older patients and also indicate that the MAST-G is an insensi tive screening instrument. A new two-step instrument with five questio ns in total was generated. This requires further validation. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.