Ekholm Ola, Bloomfield Kim, Thygesen Lau Caspar
National Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research, University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark.
Alcohol Clin Exp Res (Hoboken). 2024 Oct;48(10):1905-1914. doi: 10.1111/acer.15433. Epub 2024 Sep 4.
Prior research has shown that using lifetime abstainers as the reference group to examine the association between alcohol use and health-related consequences has several disadvantages. The aim of the present study was to examine the consistency of self-reported lifetime abstention and never-binge drinking, respectively, using national, longitudinal data collected in 2019 and 2020. Additionally, the prevalence of alcohol-related morbidity among lifetime abstainers was examined by linking survey data to alcohol-related morbidity data in a national patient register.
Data come from the Danish Health and Wellbeing Survey in 2019 and from a follow-up survey of the same individuals in 2020. A random sample of 14,000 individuals aged 15 years or older was drawn in mid-August 2019. Data were collected between September and December 2019. All those who were invited to the survey in 2019 and who were still alive and living in Denmark were invited to participate in a follow-up survey in 2020. Data in both waves were collected by self-administered questionnaires. Both questionnaires included the standard questions on alcohol consumption from the European Health Interview Survey model questionnaire. Information on alcohol-related morbidity was obtained from the Danish National Patient Register.
In all, 5000 individuals completed the questionnaire in both waves. Approximately half (44.4%) of the individuals who declared that they were lifetime abstainers in 2020 (n = 252) had reported in 2019 to have drunk at some point in their life. Moreover, 39.7% contradicted earlier reported binge drinking. Furthermore, 2.4% of the respondents who defined themselves as lifetime abstainers in 2020 had earlier been diagnosed with an alcohol-related health condition.
The present research reaffirms previous studies which have found self-reported lifetime abstainers to be unreliable as a consistent reference group. Additionally, the results indicated that a non-negligible proportion of lifetime abstainers had been diagnosed with an alcohol-related health condition.
先前的研究表明，将终生戒酒者作为参照组来研究饮酒与健康相关后果之间的关联存在若干弊端。本研究的目的是利用2019年和2020年收集的全国纵向数据，分别检验自我报告终生戒酒和从不暴饮的一致性。此外，通过将调查数据与国家患者登记册中的酒精相关发病数据相链接，对终生戒酒者中酒精相关发病率进行了调查。
数据来自2019年丹麦健康与幸福调查以及2020年对同一批个体的随访调查。2019年8月中旬抽取了140００名15岁及以上个体的随机样本。数据收集于2019年9月至12月之间。所有在2019年被邀请参加调查且仍在世并居住在丹麦的人都被邀请参加2020年的随访调查。两波调查的数据均通过自填问卷收集。两份问卷都包含了欧洲健康访谈调查模型问卷中关于饮酒的标准问题。酒精相关发病信息来自丹麦国家患者登记册。
总共有5000人完成了两波调查的问卷。在2020年宣称自己为终生戒酒者的个体（n = 252）中，约一半（44.4%）在2019年报告称自己曾在人生中的某个时候饮酒。此外，39.7%的人否认了之前报告的暴饮情况。此外，在2020年将自己定义为终生戒酒者的受访者中，有2.4%曾被诊断患有酒精相关健康问题。
本研究再次证实了先前的研究结果，即自我报告的终生戒酒者作为一个一致的参照组并不可靠。此外，结果表明，有不可忽视比例的终生戒酒者被诊断患有酒精相关健康问题。
