Abstract

HERRAN, Oscar F; ARDILA, María F  and  BARBA, Diana M. Test for assessing levels of alcohol consumption in Bucaramanga, Colombia: design and validation.. Biomédica [online]. 2008, vol.28, n.1, pp.25-37. ISSN 0120-4157.

Introduction. Excessive alcohol intake can pose a serious problem in public health. The development of instruments to classify the consumers correctly is the first stage in the epidemiologic investigation. Objective. The internal validity and the reliability was evaluated for a test of problematic alcohol consumption (CP-alcohol) in Bucaramanga, Colombia. 2005-2006. This work provides a measure that is internally consistent and improved reliability of diagnostic technology. Materials and methods. Six hundred one subjects between 18 and 60 years participated in the test for CP-alcohol on two occasions. At the same time, a survey on biological variables (VB), socioeconomic (VSE) and dietary (D) was administered. The internal consistency of CP-alcohol was evaluated by calculating the coefficient alpha of Cronbach, and the reliability with coefficients of Spearman and Cohen’s Kappa. To evaluate the associations among problematic consumption, VB, VSE, D and the risk of alcoholism, the prevalence ratios were calculated using binomial regression. Results. The frequency of problematic alcohol consumption was of 46.9 (CI 42.9-50.9). Men presented an increased frequency of problematic alcohol use 1.6 times that of women (p<0.001). The coefficient alpha of Cronbach was moderate for all the questions of the test (minimum 0.41, maximum 0.61). In the first application of CP-alcohol, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.63, and, in the second, 0.49. Spearman’s correlation coefficient was of 0.87 (CI 0.84-0.90) for the population-for men 0.86 (CI 0.82-0.90) and for women 0.86 (CI 0.82-0.90). The Kappas obtained were very good, 0.70 to 0.89.  Sex, pleasure provided by alcoholic drinks , risk of alcoholism according to Cut Down on Drinking, Annoyed by Criticism, Guilty Feeling, and Eye Opener (CAGE) and the quantity of consumed alcohol were all correlated with problematic consumption. Conclusion. CP-alcohol is a useful test for investigating the epidemiology of health problems associated with alcohol use.

Keywords : Alcoholism [epidemiology]; diagnostic techniques and procedures; reproducibility of results; validity of tests; Colombia.

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