The fourth aim of Te Rau Hinengaro: The New Zealand Mental Health Survey was to provide baseline data and calibrate brief instruments measuring mental disorders and psychological distress to inform the use of these instruments in future national health surveys.
The two instruments included in the survey were the Kessler 10-item scale (K10), a measure of psychological distress and the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT).
Results related to this aim were not presented as part of the main report. For the AUDIT tool, results have now been presented as Chapter 6 of the report “Substance Use Disorders: Te Rau Hinengaro: The New Zealand Mental Health Survey” published by the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand (ALAC).
Key Results
- A fifth of the population (20.0%) drank hazardously in the past 12 months, as assessed by scores on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT).
- Hazardous drinking was more common among males, younger people and people with medium levels of education.
- People with lower equivalised household incomes and people living in more deprived areas were less likely to drink but more likely to drink hazardously if they did drink.
- Māori and the Other composite ethnic group were equally likely to have drunk in the past 12 months (about 80%) but just over half of Pacific people drank in the past 12 months.
- Even after adjustment for sociodemographic correlates the prevalence of hazardous drinking was higher for Māori drinkers (35.6%) and Pacific drinkers (32.6%) than for Other drinkers (23.4%).
- The AUDIT discriminated very effectively between cases and non-cases for alcohol disorder and for alcohol dependence (area under the curve 0.96), but, as intended, also detected other people with hazardous or harmful drinking who did not meet criteria for a DSM-IV alcohol disorder.
- If a cut-point on the AUDIT was to be used to indicate alcohol disorder or dependence then a cut-point higher than the standard cut-point of a score of 8 or more should be used.