What does it mean when people say that they have received expressions of concern about their drinking or advice to cut down on the AUDIT scale?

John A. Cunningham, Alexandra Godinho, Vladyslav Kushnir, Nicolas Bertholet

The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) is a commonly used scale to measure severity of alcohol consumption that contains an item asking if anyone has expressed concern about your drinking or suggested you cut down. What does it mean when a participant says yes to this question? Participants who were 18 or older and who drank at least weekly were recruited to complete a survey about their drinking from the Mechanical Turk platform. Comparisons were made between at risk (n = 2565) and high risk drinkers (n = 581) who said that someone had expressed concern about their drinking regarding who had expressed concern. If the person expressing concern was a health professional, the participant was also asked what type of support was provided. Expressions of concern about drinking were received more often by high risk than at risk drinkers. The most common type of person to have expressed concern was a relative, followed by a friend, or a marital partner. About one quarter of participants had received expressions of concern from a medical doctor or other health professional. All health professionals' expressions of concern were accompanied by a suggestion to cut down and about half provided some additional support (the most common type of support was brief advice). Expressions of concern come from a variety of sources and the likelihood of their occurrence is partially related to amount of alcohol intake.