Identifying young people who drink too much: the clinical utility of the five-item Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT)

The current study investigated the patterns and consequences of alcohol use among young people and their perceptions of associate health risk, and exp lored the clinical utility of the five-item version of the Alcohol Use Diso rders Identification Test (AUDIT) in screening young people for hazardous d rinking. A cross-sectional sample of 393 young people aged 16-19 years were accessed through two tertiary colleges in South London and self-completed an anonymous, confidential questionnaire recording the five-item AUDIT, pat terns of alcohol consumption, hazardous consequences and perception of asso ciate health risk. Over 90% of the sample reported drinking alcohol regular ly, commonly excessive weekend use and related physical, psychological and social consequences. A significant minority (20.4% of males, 18.0% of femal es) reported consumption of alcohol in excess of UK recommended limits, whi le almost a third (34.2% of males, 30.2% of females) reported scores in the 'hazardous' range of the five-item AUDIT. However, the majority had little perception of associate health risk, perceiving their use to be 'light' an d unproblematic. Only one in 10 of those drinking at 'hazardous' levels rec ognized their alcohol use as problematic, most believing the hazardous cons equences of this use were acceptable. Self-reported patterns of alcohol con sumption (except age first used) and total number of psychological and soci al hazardous consequences were found to significantly predict AUDIT scores using linear regression analysis. Therefore the five-item AUDIT appears to have predictive validity, reflecting self-reported alcohol consumption, per ception of associate health risk and hazardous consequences among young peo ple. It is concluded that it may consequently have clinical utility as a si mple screening tool (suitable for use by a variety of professionals in cont act with young people) for the identification of hazardous alcohol consumpt ion among this population.