Prevalence of hazardous-harmful drinking in a southern Thai community

The objective of this study was to identify the prevalence and characteristics of hazardous-harmful drinkers in a Thai community population using a cross-sectional survey in two urban and five rural areas in Southern Thailand. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 1,005 subjects, aged > or = 35, at the community centres to collect data on demographic characteristics and smoking and drinking patterns. The Alcohol Use Identification Test (AUDIT) was used to classify the subjects into three groups: hazardous-harmful drinkers (AUDIT > or = 8), non-problem drinkers (AUDIT=1 - 7) and non-drinkers (AUDIT=0). Blood samples were drawn from 200 randomly selected subjects to determine the gamma glutamyltransferease (GGT) level. The analysis was performed on 898 respondents, 325 males and 573 females. Age-adjusted prevalence of hazardous-harmful drinkers was 10% (27% in males and 1% in females). Adjusted for other variables, men were seven times (95% CI=4.2 - 11.5) more likely to be non-problem drinkers and 42 times (95% CI=18.1 - 99.0) more likely to be hazardous-harmful drinkers than women. Median intensity of drinking was 43 g and 25 g per drinking day in the hazardous-harmful and non-problem drinkers, respectively. Of all the subjects, 48%, 25% and 15% of the hazardous-harmful, non-problem and non-drinkers had abnormal GGT. Hazardous-harmful drinking is a prevalent problem in male general population in Thailand.