Identificazione precoce dei bevitori a rischio in Assistenza Primaria in Italia: adattamento del questionario AUDIT e verifica dell’efficacia d’uso dello short-AUDIT test nel contesto nazionale

Aims: the study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of adapting a shorter version of the WHO AUDIT Questionnaire (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test) in a setting of primary health care in Italy. The ten questions version of the AUDIT has shown too many limitations, for its use in a primary health care setting, as evidenced in the results of recent pilot studies, carried out in Italy. To this purpose, the Ministry of health has funded a project to prepare and test a three- questions shorter version of the AUDIT, for the Italian context. Methods: 232 questionnaires previously administered to an opportunistic sample of GP clients, were examined to verify the internal validity of the first three items of the AUDIT Questionnaire, in comparison to the full set of ten questions. We used parametric (Pearson) and non-parametric (Spearman) tests to analyse the predictive value of the first three questions with a cut-off point of 5. Results: both Spearman test (r=.991) (considering the non ordinal nature of the items) and Pearson test (r=.954) (considering that the value is the sum of all the other values) evidenced that the first three questions are predictive of the same results obtained by using all ten questions. Conclusions: Notwithstanding the limitations that arise from its application to a local context, this study wants to contribute to the development of national strategies for the systematic application of the AUDIT early identification and brief intervention in the primary health care settings.