The aim of conducting a substance abuse screening is to determine whether an individual has or is at risk of developing alcoholism or other drug-related problems. According to Barry and Blow (2016) substance screening is essential in identifying individuals that require further assessment to diagnose the extent of their substance abuse problem and help them to come up with effective treatment plans to address the problem.
There are several screening instruments which have been designed to identify alcoholism in a person. Some of the methods include the AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test), CAGE questionnaire, Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST), Self-Administered Alcoholism Screening Test (SMST) and Alcohol Dependence Scale (ADS). The AUDIT is considered to be the most accurate and is used by the NIAAA in the community (Tiet at al., 2015). The CAGE method can be self-administered or conducted by a clinician – it’s a mnemonic that assists a person to cut down on drinking, annoyance with criticisms about drinking, guilt about drinking, and using alcohol as an eye-opener. The MAST is a 25-item questionnaire that helps a person to understand the consequences of drinking and their perceptions of alcohol-related problems.
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The SMST is a 10-item questionnaire that helps a person to identify if they have a problem with alcoholism. ADS is a self-report questionnaire developed to measure elements of the alcohol dependence syndrome defined by Edwards and Gross (levy et al., 2016). These instruments serve only as screening tools and their validity and reliability are useful in clinical use. Their sensitivity and specificity are effective during the primary diagnosis level of assessing for alcoholism.
References
Barry, K. L., & Blow, F. C. (2016). Drinking Over the Lifespan: Focus on Older Adults. Alcohol research : current reviews , 38 (1), 115–120.
Levy, S., Dedeoglu, F., Gaffin, J. M., Garvey, K. C., Harstad, E., MacGinnitie, A., … Weitzman, E. R. (2016). A Screening Tool for Assessing Alcohol Use Risk among Medically Vulnerable Youth. PloS one , 11 (5), e0156240. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0156240
Tiet, Q. Q, Leyva, Y.E., Moos, R. H., Frayne, S. M., Osterberg, L.and Smith, B. (2015). Screen of Drug Use: Diagnostic Accuracy of a New Brief Tool for Primary Care . JAMA Intern Med. 2015;175(8):1371–1377. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2438
