Drinking patterns in general practice patients.

Patients from 47 group practices recruited from the Medical Research Council's general practice research framework participated in a study involving the collection of information about smoking, drinking, exercise and dieting and weight. This paper is concerned with the data on alcohol consumption obtained in the first stage of the study in which a self-administered questionnaire, the health survey questionnaire, was distributed by hand or by post to patients registered with the participating practices.Of the 25496 men who completed the questionnaire, 83.6% stated that they had been drinking in the previous three months compared with 69.2% of the 36657 women. For both sexes, abstinence rates were significantly lower in the younger age groups (P<O.001). Of the men, 7.6% admitted to a weekly alcohol consumption of 35 units or more and 2.7% women were drinking 21 units per week or more.Of the 1948 male excessive drinkers 45.9% expressed concern about their drinking through a positive CAGE response and/or self assessment of a drinking problem, while for the 989 female excessive drinkers the figure was 44.1%. A positive response to these questions was strongly related to alcohol consumption and was more frequent among women than men at most levels of consumption.