For harmful drug use, we incorporated five indicators: (1) harmful drinking: alcohol consumption that is actually or potentially related to current social and medical problems is commonly measured with the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT).
The full 10-item AUDIT questionnaire assesses alcohol consumption, harmful drinking and alcohol dependence.
Although women aged 18-24 years reported the highest levels of alcohol consumption, harmful drinking occurred in all age groups.
Alcohol problems manifest in several ways: in high level of alcohol consumption, harmful drinking patterns and relapse to alcohol drinking after treatment.
The survey included the AUDIT questionnaire (which assessed alcohol consumption, harmful drinking and alcohol dependence), socio-demographic assessment and a question assessing beliefs about how one's drinking compares with others.
Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD): The AUDIT is a ten item questionnaire designed to screen for hazardous and harmful drinking (WHO, 2001), assessing consumption, dependence and alcohol related problems (WHO, 2001).
Hazardous drinking is defined as a quantity or pattern of alcohol consumption that places patients at risk for adverse health events, while harmful drinking is defined as alcohol consumption that results in adverse events (e.g., physical or psychological harm) [ 22].
The term 'risky alcohol use' is used here to mean alcohol consumption that increases the risk of alcohol-related harm (also called hazardous drinking), as well as alcohol consumption that is already causing alcohol-related harm (also called harmful drinking) [ 10].
Evaluation of public health policy such as strategies to tackle alcohol problems in Scotland (and beyond) will benefit from enhanced knowledge with the improved estimates of alcohol consumption and prevalence of harmful drinking and dependency which we aim to offer.
The high rate of potentially harmful drinking in men and the increase in such consumption in women suggest a need for studies designed to evaluate the clinical and public health consequences of changing trends in alcohol consumption in older people.
