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Prevalence of hazardous—harmful drinking in a southern Thai community
Author(s) -
ASSANANGKORNCHAIMD SAWITRI,
PINKAEW PATTAREE,
APAKUPAKUL NUALTA
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
drug and alcohol review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.018
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1465-3362
pISSN - 0959-5236
DOI - 10.1080/0959523031000154427
Subject(s) - alcohol use disorders identification test , environmental health , hazardous waste , medicine , audit , population , demography , injury prevention , poison control , ecology , management , sociology , economics , biology
The objective of this study was to identify the prevalence and characteristics of hazardous –harmful drinkers in a Thai community population using a cross‐sectional survey in two urban and five rural areas in Southern Thailand. Face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with 1005 subjects, aged ≥ 35, at the community centres to collect data on demographic characteristics and smoking and drinking patterns. The Alcohol Use Identification Test (AUDIT) was used to classify the subjects into three groups: hazardous—harmful drinkers (AUDIT ≥ 8), non‐problem drinkers (AUDIT=1–7) and non‐drinkers (AUDIT=0). Blood samples were drawn from 200 randomly selected subjects to determine the gamma glutamyltransferease (GGT) level. The analysis was performed on 898 respondents, 325 males and 573 females. Age‐adjusted prevalence of hazardous — harmful drinkers was 10% (27% in males and 1% in females). Adjusted for other variables, men were seven times (95% CI = 4.2–11.5) more likely to be non‐problem drinkers and 42 times (95% CI = 18.1–99.0) more likely to be hazardous — harmful drinkers than women. Median intensity of drinking was 43 g and 25 g per drinking day in the hazardous — harmful and non‐problem drinkers, respectively. Of all the subjects, 48%, 25% and 15% of the hazardous — harmful, non‐problem and non‐drinkers had abnormal GGT. Hazardous — harmful drinking is a prevalent problem in male general population in Thailand.