Korean J Fam Med. 2012;33:126-133 http://dx.doi.org/10.4082/kjfm.2012.33.3.126 Usefulness of Alcohol-screening Instruments in Detecting Problem Drinking among Elderly Male Drinkers Original Article Young Il Ryou, Jong Sung Kim*, Jin Gyu Jung, Sung Soo Kim, Dong Hyun Choi Department of Family Medicine, Research Institute for Medical Sciences, Chungnam National University School of Medicine, Daejeon, Korea Background: In Korea, few studies have been performed on screening instruments for the detection of at-risk drinking and alcohol use disorders in the elderly. This study evaluated the validity of three screening instruments in elderly male drinkers. Methods: The subjects were 242 Korean men aged ≥ 65 years. Face-to-face interviews were used to identify at-risk drinking and alcohol use disorders. At-risk drinking was deﬁned according to the criteria for heavy or binge drinking of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Alcohol use disorder was diagnosed using the criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV-text revision. The Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT), Short Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test-geriatric version (SMAST-G), and cut down, annoyed, guilty, eye- opener (CAGE) questionnaire were used as the alcohol-screening instruments. Based on the diagnostic interview results, sensitivity, specificity, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of the instruments were compared. Results: For identiﬁcation of at-risk drinking, the AUDIT AUROC demonstrated greater diagnostic power than did those of SMAST-G and CAGE (both P < 0.001). In screening for alcohol use disorders, the AUDIT AUROC was also signiﬁcantly higher than those of SMAST-G and CAGE (both P < 0.001). The sensitivity and speciﬁcity of screening for at-risk drinking with an AUDIT score ≥ 7 were 77.3% and 85.1%, respectively, whereas those for the alcohol use disorders with an AUDIT score ≥ 11 were 91.3% and 90.8%, respectively. Conclusion: The results suggest that the AUDIT is the most effective tool in identifying problem drinkers among elderly male drinkers. Keywords: Alcohol; Mass Screening; Aged; Alcoholism Received: August 30, 2010, Accepted: April 17, 2012 *Corresponding Author: Jong Sung Kim Tel: 82-42-280-8172, Fax: 82-42-280-7879 E-mail: jskim@cnuh.co.kr Korean Journal of Family Medicine Copyright © 2012 The Korean Academy of Family Medicine This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 126 | Vol. 33, No. 3 May 2012 INTRODUCTION Recent age-related domestic population demographics have shown significant growth in the elderly population, indicating that society is aging. In 2007, elderly people (aged ≥ 65) accounted for 9.9% of the total population in Korea, a 3.5% rise compared with 6.4% in 1997. Furthermore, the percentage of elderly individuals in Korea is expected to reach 14.3% in 2018, which is a definite sign of an aging population.1) The ever-growing aging population and the ensuing increase in elderly problem drinkers may lead Korean J Fam Med