Performance of screening instruments for alcohol use disorders among Argentinean women admitted to an Emergency Department

CREMONTE, M Y CHERPITEL, CH.

Mar del Plata, Argentina

Conferencia; Scientific Conference of the International Society of Addiction Medicine; 2005

International Society of Addiction Medicine

The perfomrance of the following screening instruments for alcohol disorders was tested: AUDIT, CAGE, MAST b, RAPS4 and TWEAK. The forementioned instruments were administered in a 25 minutes quistionnaire along with the alcohol section of the CIDI to a probability sample of 410 women admitted at the Emergency Department of an Argentinean Public General Hospital.  All instruments showed higher sensitivity for alcohol dependence (DSM IV) than for abuse (DSM IV). Overall the sensitivity for abuse was low. Given that for screening instruments higher sensitivity values are preffered over higher specificity values, the best preforming instrument is RAPS Q-F for abuse and RAPS4 for dependence.  The Brief MAST resulted not adequate for screening. Although the results can not be generalized to other, non clinical populations they seem to indicate that RAPS4 and RAPS4-QF may be preffered when screening women for alcohol use disorders.