In most cases the total AUDIT score will
reflect the patient’s level of risk related to
alcohol. In general health care settings
and in community surveys, most patients
will score under the cut-offs and may be
considered to have low risk of alcoholrelated
problems. A smaller, but still significant,
portion of the population is likely
to score above the cut-offs but record
most of their points on the first three
questions. A much smaller proportion
can be expected to score very high, with
points recorded on the dependence-related
questions as well as exhibiting alcohol-related
problems. As yet there has
been insufficient research to establish
SCORING AND INTERPRETATION I 19
Scoring and Interpretation
precisely a cut-off point to distinguish
hazardous and harmful drinkers (who
would benefit from a brief intervention)
from alcohol dependent drinkers (who
should be referred for diagnostic evaluation
and more intensive treatment). This
is an important question because screening
programmes designed to identify
cases of alcohol dependence are likely to
find a large number of hazardous and
harmful drinkers if the cut-off of 8 is
used. These patients need to be managed
with less intensive interventions. In
general, the higher the total score on the
AUDIT, the greater the sensitivity in finding
persons with alcohol dependence.