Performance of self-reported measures of alcohol use and of harmful drinking patterns against ethyl glucuronide hair testing among young Swiss men.

Abstract

BackgroundThere is a need for empirical studies assessing the psychometric properties of self-reported alcohol use as measures of excessive chronic drinking (ECD) compared to those of objective measures, such as ethyl glucuronide (EtG).ObjectivesTo test the quality of self-reported measures of alcohol use and of risky single-occasion drinking (RSOD) to detect ECD assessed by EtG.MethodsA total of 227 samples of hair from young Swiss men were used for the determination of EtG. Self-reported measures of alcohol use (previous twelve-month and previous-week alcohol use) and RSOD were assessed. Using EtG (ResultsA total of 23.3% of participants presented with ECD. Previous twelve-month alcohol use with a cut-off of >15 drinks per week (sensitivity = 75.5%, specificity = 78.7%) and weekly RSOD (sensitivity = 75.5%, specificity = 70.1%) yielded acceptable psychometric properties. No cut-off for previous-week alcohol use gave acceptable results. In the multivariate logistic regression, after controlling for the previous twelve months of alcohol use, RSOD was still significantly associated with EtG (p = .016).ConclusionSelf-reported measures of the previous twelve months of alcohol use and RSOD were acceptable measures of ECD for population-based screening. Self-reported RSOD appeared to be an interesting screening measure, in addition to the previous twelve months of alcohol use, to understand ECD among young people.