Laboratory of Epidemiology and Biometry, Division of Intramural Clinical and Biological Research, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892-9304, USA.
Addiction. 2010 Sep;105(9):1568-79. doi: 10.1111/j.1360-0443.2010.02994.x. Epub 2010 Jun 21.
To evaluate whether weighting counts of alcohol use disorder (AUD) criteria or symptoms by their frequency of occurrence improves their association with correlates of AUD.
Data were collected in personal interviews with a representative sample of US adults interviewed in 1991-92. Analyses were conducted among past-year drinkers (12+ drinks, n = 18 352) and individuals with past-year DSM-IV AUD (n = 2770).
Thirty-one symptom item indicators, whose frequency of occurrence was measured in eight categories, were used to create unweighted and frequency-weighted counts of DSM-IV past-year AUD symptoms and criteria. Correlates included density of familial alcoholism and past-year volume of ethanol intake, frequency of intoxication and utilization of alcohol treatment.
Although the AUD correlates were associated strongly and positively with the frequency of AUD symptom occurrence, weighting for symptom frequency did not strengthen their association consistently with AUD severity scores. Improved performance of the weighted scores was observed primarily among AUD correlates linked closely with the frequency of heavy drinking and among individuals with AUD. Criterion counts were correlated nearly as strongly as symptom counts with the AUD correlates.
Frequency weighting may add somewhat to the validity of AUD severity measures, especially those that are intended for use among individuals with AUD, e.g. in clinical settings. For studying the etiology and course of AUD in the general population, an equally effective and less time-consuming alternative to obtaining symptom frequency may be the use of unweighted criterion counts accompanied by independent measures of frequency of heavy drinking.
评估对酒精使用障碍（AUD）标准或症状的计数进行加权，按照其发生频率进行加权，是否会提高它们与 AUD 相关因素的相关性。
数据来自于对美国成年人的代表性样本进行的个人访谈，访谈时间为 1991-1992 年。分析对象为过去一年有饮酒行为的人群（饮酒 12 次以上，n=18352）和过去一年患有 DSM-IV AUD 的个体（n=2770）。
使用 31 项症状项目指标，这些指标的发生频率分为八个类别进行测量，用于创建 DSM-IV 过去一年 AUD 症状和标准的非加权和频率加权计数。相关因素包括家族性酗酒密度和过去一年乙醇摄入量、醉酒频率和酒精治疗利用情况。
尽管 AUD 相关因素与 AUD 症状发生频率强烈且呈正相关，但对症状频率进行加权并不能始终如一地增强它们与 AUD 严重程度评分的关联。在与重度饮酒频率密切相关的 AUD 相关因素和 AUD 个体中，观察到加权分数的表现有所改善。标准计数与 AUD 相关因素的相关性几乎与症状计数一样强。
频率加权可能会略微增加 AUD 严重程度测量的有效性，尤其是那些针对 AUD 个体使用的测量方法，例如在临床环境中。对于在普通人群中研究 AUD 的病因和病程，一种同样有效的、耗时更少的替代方法是使用非加权标准计数，并结合独立的重度饮酒频率测量。
