Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2012 Oct 5:7:42.
doi: 10.1186/1747-597X-7-42.

The alcohol use disorders identification test (AUDIT): validation of a Nepali version for the detection of alcohol use disorders and hazardous drinking in medical settings

Bickram Pradhan  1 , François Chappuis, Dharanidhar Baral, Prahlad Karki, Suman Rijal, Antoine Hadengue, Pascal Gache
Affiliations

The alcohol use disorders identification test (AUDIT): validation of a Nepali version for the detection of alcohol use disorders and hazardous drinking in medical settings

Bickram Pradhan et al. Subst Abuse Treat Prev Policy. .

Abstract

Background: Alcohol problems are a major health issue in Nepal and remain under diagnosed. Increase in consumption are due to many factors, including advertising, pricing and availability, but accurate information is lacking on the prevalence of current alcohol use disorders. The AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test) questionnaire developed by WHO identifies individuals along the full spectrum of alcohol misuse and hence provides an opportunity for early intervention in non-specialty settings. This study aims to validate a Nepali version of AUDIT among patients attending a university hospital and assess the prevalence of alcohol use disorders along the full spectrum of alcohol misuse.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in patients attending the medicine out-patient department of a university hospital. DSM-IV diagnostic categories (alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence) were used as the gold standard to calculate the diagnostic parameters of the AUDIT. Hazardous drinking was defined as self reported consumption of ≥21 standard drink units per week for males and ≥14 standard drink units per week for females.

Results: A total of 1068 individuals successfully completed the study. According to DSM-IV, drinkers were classified as follows: No alcohol problem (n=562; 59.5%), alcohol abusers (n= 78; 8.3%) and alcohol dependent (n=304; 32.2%). The prevalence of hazardous drinker was 67.1%. The Nepali version of AUDIT is a reliable and valid screening tool to identify individuals with alcohol use disorders in the Nepalese population. AUDIT showed a good capacity to discriminate dependent patients (with AUDIT ≥11 for both the gender) and hazardous drinkers (with AUDIT ≥5 for males and ≥4 for females). For alcohol dependence/abuse the cut off values was ≥9 for both males and females.

Conclusion: The AUDIT questionnaire is a good screening instrument for detecting alcohol use disorders in patients attending a university hospital. This study also reveals a very high prevalence of alcohol use disorders in Nepal.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Receiver operating curve of the AUDIT using DSM-IV criteria for alcohol dependence.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Receiver operating curve of the AUDIT using DSM-IV criteria for alcohol abuse/ dependence.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Receiver operating curve of the AUDIT using WHO criteria for hazardous drinking.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Saitz R. Clinical practice: Unhealthy alcohol use. N Eng J Med. 2005;352(6):596–607. doi: 10.1056/NEJMcp042262. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Room R, Babor T, Rehm J. Alcohol and public health. Lancet. 2005;365:519–530. - PubMed
    1. The World Health Report. World Health Organization. Switzerland, Geneva; 2001.
    1. Saxena S. Alcohol, Europe, and developing countries. Addiction. 1997;92(suppl 1):43–48. - PubMed
    1. Jhingan HP, Shyangwa P, Sharma A, Prasad KM, Khandelwal SK. Prevalence of alcohol dependence in a town in Nepal as assessed by CAGE questionnaire. Addiction. 2003;98(3):339–343. doi: 10.1046/j.1360-0443.2003.00301.x. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources