TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2013//
TI  - Missed and inconsistent classification of current drinkers: results from the 2005 U.S National Alcohol Survey
JO  - Addiction
A1  - Midanik, Lorraine T.
A1  - Ye, Yu
A1  - Greenfield, Thomas K.
A1  - Kerr, William
SP  - 348
EP  - 355
VL  - 108
IS  - 2
N2  - AIMS: This study compares current 12-month drinkers who do not report drinking in the last 30 days with current drinkers who drank in the last 30 days and assesses possible misclassification errors from use of a 30-day consumption measure. DESIGN: Data are from the 2005 US National Alcohol Survey (N=6919), a national household probability survey. SETTING: Telephone interviews were used to measure alcohol use and alcohol-related problems. PARTICIPANTS: This study compared 1,300 current drinkers who did not drink in the last 30 days with 2,956 current drinkers who drank in the last 30 days. MEASUREMENTS: Volume was measured by Quantity/Frequency Scales (12-month and 30-day) and a Graduated Frequency Scale (12-month). Both groups were compared by demographic, alcohol volume, days of 5 or more drinks, social consequences and dependence measures. FINDINGS: Results indicate a significantly lower prevalence rate of current drinking for 30-day measures - 47.3% (45.8%, 48.8%) versus 67.3% (66.0%, 68.7%) with 12-month measure. Further, 385 non 30-day drinkers reported 12-month drinking frequencies of once a month or more often, suggesting a possibly inconsistent reporting of their alcohol use. When this group of "inconsistent" respondents is compared with the 915 non 30-day current drinkers who reported less than monthly drinking, they reported significantly higher yearly volume, days of 5 or more drinks, mean social consequences, and proportion reporting alcohol dependence. CONCLUSIONS: In population surveys assessing alcohol use, asking about the previous 12 months rather than the past 30 days provides higher estimates of current use including more days of heavy episodic use.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0965-2140
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2012.04079.x
ID  - ref1
ER  -