Not everyone who occasionally drinks beyond their thirst has an addiction problem. Diagnosing alcohol addiction is not easy. Researchers have taken a crucial step to simplify the identification of problem alcohol use.
How much alcohol is too much alcohol? According to the ‘Foundation for Health Knowledge’, 1.6 million people in Germany are addicted to alcohol; that is about 1.9 percent of the population.
The Epidemiological Addiction Survey (ESA), on which these figures are based, also states that 4.5 percent of men and 1.7 percent of women aged 18 to 64 are affected.
However, these figures should not be too reliable if you consider that not all alcoholic people give the same picture.
Some manage to cope with the demands of life, such as a job, despite their addiction and are therefore good at hiding their problem. One speaks of high-functioning sufferers.
It is precisely in these cases that treatment is difficult because those affected keep their alcohol addiction secret and even deny it.
There are catalogs of questions so that medical professionals can diagnose alcohol dependence, but they can be relatively time-consuming.
The best guides can be found here
In the course of a meta-study, British researchers from the University of Leicester have found a much simpler way of detecting alcohol addiction with a hit rate of 87 percent.
In reviewing 17 subject-related studies, the research team was able to identify two questions that should be sufficient to determine alcohol addiction.
These two identified questions could make the work of general practitioners considerably easier. They can be casually woven into the discussion with the patient. This also encourages a spontaneous and possibly more truthful answer.
The two questions that the British research team identified as particularly revealing are as follows:
If the first question is answered with “often” or even “regularly”, this indicates a problematic relationship with alcohol.
Answering the second question with “yes” also represents a clear indication. In combination, these two questions have a hit rate of 87 percent.
The British research team advises that patients who can be classified as “at risk” after answering the two questions should be subjected to an examination using a longer catalog of questions – for example the CAGE test or the AUDIT questionnaire.
Subsequently, alcohol dependence can be correctly diagnosed with a probability of over 90 percent.
If you want to question your relationship to alcohol yourself, you can take the C AGE test, which is available online.
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The original of this post “You can recognize alcoholic people with simple questions” comes from FitForFun.
