Five-shot questionnaire on heavy drinking.

To develop an effective, but short, questionnaire to detect heavy drinking, we combined two questions from AUDIT and three from CAGE. We have tested earlier this new Five-Shot questionnaire among male alcoholics who all had a total score of at least 4/7. The purpose of the present study was to find out the effectiveness of the Five-Shot questionnaire among middle-aged men. In the present study, the Five-Shot questionnaire was distributed to all (n = 853) 40-year-old men attending health screening in a Finnish town. The participation percentage in the screening was 70.3%. Self-reported alcohol consumption was used as a gold standard; 557 of these men gave a self-report that they consumed less absolute alcohol than 140 g/week (moderate drinkers), and 70 reported consuming > or = 280 g/week (heavy drinkers). None of the individual Five-Shot questions was superior to any other in detecting heavy drinkers. The cut-off point > or = 3 for Five-Shot gave a 77% sensitivity in detecting heavy drinkers, with a specificity of 83% and an overall accuracy of 83%. The corresponding figures with > or = 2.5 cut-off were 96%, 76%, and 78%. The commonly used cut-off for CAGE, > or = 2, gave a result of 47%, 87%, and 83%, respectively. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for the CAGE was clearly worse, compared with that of the Five-Shot. The new Five-Shot questionnaire seems to be efficient in differentiating between moderate and heavy drinkers. It is also easy and fast for physicians to use in different health-care settings. Thus, it can serve as a good aid in early detection of heavy drinking.