Abstract
BACKGROUND: A variety of measures have been developed to screen for hazardous or harmful drinking. The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test-Consumption (AUDIT-C) is one of the screening measures recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Annual administration of the AUDIT-C to all primary care patients is required by the U.S. Veterans Affairs Health System. The availability of data from the repeated administration of this instrument over time in a large patient population provides an opportunity to evaluate the utility of the AUDIT-C for identifying distinct drinking groups. METHODS: Using data from the Million Veteran Program cohort, we modeled group-based drinking trajectories using 2,833,189 AUDIT-C scores from 495,178 Veterans across an average 6-year time period. We also calculated patients' age-adjusted mean AUDIT-C scores to compare to the drinking trajectories. Finally, we extracted data on selected clinical diagnoses from the electronic health record and assessed their associations with the drinking trajectories. RESULTS: Of the trajectory models, the 4-group model demonstrated the best fit to the data. AUDIT-C trajectories were highly correlated with the age-adjusted mean AUDIT-C scores (rs = 0.94). Those with an alcohol use disorder diagnosis had 10 times the odds of being in the highest trajectory group (consistently hazardous/harmful) compared to the lowest drinking trajectory group (infrequent). Those with hepatitis C, posttraumatic stress disorder, liver cirrhosis, and delirium had 10, 7, 21, and 34%, respectively, higher odds of being classified in the highest drinking trajectory group versus the lowest drinking trajectory group. CONCLUSIONS: Trajectories and age-adjusted mean scores are potentially useful approaches to optimize the information provided by the AUDIT-C. In contrast to trajectories, age-adjusted mean AUDIT-C scores also have clinical relevance for real-time identification of individuals for whom an intervention may be warranted.