Combining methods to identify new measures of women's drinking problems. Part II: The survey stage

This is the second of a two-part report on a study aimed at investigating novel indicators of drinking problems among women drinkers. The study was motivated by the suspicion that most measures of drinking problems grew out of studies of male populations with the likelihood that such measures would be less relevant for female drinkers. The first part of this report describes the background for the study and the steps that were taken to generate a short list of "novel" indicators which were then incorporated into an instrument for a general population survey. Using several measures of alcohol consumption as criteria for evaluating the indicators, this paper reports on which indicators may uncover dimensions of alcohol problems not already subsumed by a standard population screen, the CAGE. In particular, results suggest that indicators of "high capacity for alcohol", "seeking out a 'wet' environment", and "planning opportunities to drink" are promising for both women and men, with more qualified support for less "frequent illness" (for women) and "excessive behavior" (for men). These results must be viewed within the context of an exploratory study and indicate avenues for further research.