[Do people attending clinics at our health centre know the amount of alcohol consumption that becomes detrimental to health?].

OBJECTIVES

To evaluate our patients' knowledge of the effects of excess drinking; b) to compare this with their awareness of the effects of their day-to-day drinking habits.

DESIGN

Descriptive, randomized, cross-sectional questionnaire-based study. Information on alcohol consumption was obtained from medical records.

SETTING

Primary care center in Chantrea (Navarra province, northern Spain). Participants. 351 persons older than 14 years who came to the health center. Outcome measures. Number of units of alcohol consumed per day that participants considered harmful to health, and number of units consumed per day according to information in their medical record.

RESULTS

Perception of problems associated with excess drinking was good, particularly among women. In general, the participants' awareness (including excess drinkers) of the amounts of alcohol that could damage their health was good. Although younger persons tended to identify as harmful to health limits that were above the recommended figures, we found that their consumption was low but was overrecorded. Comparison of the intakes that persons identified as harmful with the amounts of alcohol they actually consumed showed that the latter was generally related with the former, although in 10% of the participants, recorded intake was higher than the limit they identified as harmful. This group contained 80% of the drinkers in our sample who were considered at risk.

CONCLUSIONS

It appears necessary to increase the information given to young persons about harmful levels of alcohol intake; b) we found no clear evidence of risk drinking among younger persons; this will require questioning about their week-end drinking habits; c) risk drinkers know the limits of consumption that can damage their health, but their alcohol consumption is incongruent with this knowledge.