Screening Test for At-Risk Drinking: Development of New Abbreviated Version of Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test for Young and Middle-Aged Adults

Several abbreviated versions of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) have been developed for use in high-volume clinical situations such as emergency departments. In this study, we developed a new abbreviated version of AUDIT called the Screening Tool for At-risk Drinking (STAD) for young and middle-aged adults, consisting of two questions that reflect the structure of the AUDIT questionnaire using data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES). To derive the abbreviated test considering AUDIT item structure, we performed confirmatory factor analysis on the 10 AUDIT questions in the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) IV. To validate the new abbreviated test, we analyzed the sensitivity, specificity, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) on the KNHANES V-VI except for the KNHANES VI-2. Based on the two-factor structure of AUDIT, question (Q) 3 and Q7 were finally selected for STAD. In validation, AUROC was significantly wider for STAD than for AUDIT-QF, which has the same number of questions. There was no significant difference between AUDIT-C, consisting of three questions, and STAD. It can be used as a simple and reliable screening test in clinical settings.