Self-Report Survey Measures of Alcohol-Impaired Driving: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Objective: Alcohol-impaired driving is a major contributor to motor vehicle crash deaths and injury. Many survey studies include self-report measures of alcohol-impaired driving, but no guidance is available to help researchers select from among available measures. The aims of this systematic review were to compile a list of measures that researchers have used previously, to compare performance between measures, and to identify the measures with highest validity and reliability.

Method: Literature searches of PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science identified studies that assessed alcohol-impaired driving behavior through self-report. The measures from each study and, if available, indices of reliability or validity were extracted. Using the measures' text, we developed 10 codes to group similar measures and compare them. For example, the "alcohol effects" code refers to driving while feeling dizzy or lightheaded after drinking, and the "drink count" code pertains to the number of drinks someone consumed before driving. For measures with multiple items, each item was categorized separately.

Results: After screening according to the eligibility criteria, 41 articles were included in the review. Thirteen articles reported on reliability. No articles reported on validity. The self-report measures with the highest reliability coefficients contained items from multiple codes, namely alcohol effects and drink count.

Conclusions: Self-report alcohol-impaired driving measures with multiple items evaluating distinct aspects of alcohol-impaired driving show better reliability than measures using a single item. Future work investigating the validity of these measures is needed to determine the best approach for conducting self-report research in this area.

Figure 1.

Search term strategy used for identifying articles. Combination number 20 was used for the final retrieval of all articles assessed for inclusion in this review.

Figure 2.

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram outlining the article selection process. AID = alcohol-impaired driving.

Figure 3.

Count of alcohol-impaired driving (AID) self-report measure codes stratified by report of reliability or internal consistency. Some reported measures contain more than one item, resulting in multiple codes per evaluated measure. DUI = driving under the influence of alcohol.