Table 1.
Descriptive characteristics and median Spearman correlations between IRT criteria thresholds from published investigations
| Article | Sample | Instrument | Sample size |
Time-frame | No. of criteria |
Median ρ (range)a |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Casey et al. (2012) | NESARC wave 2 | AUDADIS-IV | 22 177b | Current | 11 | 0.30 (−0.60 to 0.93) |
| Dawson et al. (2010)c | NESARC wave 1 | AUDADIS-IV | 26 946b | Current | 11 | 0.38 (−0.39 to 1.00) |
| Saha et al. (2006)c | NESARC wave 1 | AUDADIS-IV | 22 526d | Current | 10 | 0.33 (−0.53 to 1.00) |
| Saha et al. (2007)c | NESARC wave 1 | AUDADIS-IV | 20 846e | Current | 11 | 0.42 (−0.30 to 0.99) |
| Shmulewitz et al. (2010)c | Israeli households | AUDADIS-IV | 1066 | Current | 11 | 0.43 (−0.52 to 0.87) |
| 1160 | Lifetime | 11 | 0.35 (−0.11 to 0.85) | |||
| Keyes et al. (2011) | NLAES | AUDADIS-IV | 18 352e | Current | 12 | 0.36 (−0.56 to 0.85) |
| Preuss et al. (2014) | WHO/ISBRA | AUDADIS-based | 711 | Lifetime | 11 | 0.26 (−0.65 to 0.86) |
| Australia | 104 | 0.18 (−0.43 to 0.89) | ||||
| Brazil | 212 | 0.51 (−0.60 to 0.96) | ||||
| Canada | 227 | 0.15 (−0.68 to 0.88) | ||||
| Finland | 86 | 0.21 (−0.53 to 0.89) | ||||
| Japan | 82 | 0.38 (−0.57 to 0.86) | ||||
| Mewton et al. (2011a); | NSMHWB | CIDI V2.0 | 7746 | Current | 11 | 0.31 (−0.52 to 0.93) |
| Proudfoot et al. (2006) | ||||||
| Mewton et al. (2011b) | NSMHWB | CIDI V2.0 | 853f | Current | 11 | 0.44 (−0.37 to 0.89) |
| McCutcheon et al. (2011) | COGA | SSAGA | 8605 | Lifetime | 9 | 0.40 (−0.52 to 1.00) |
| Non-DUI men | 3056 | 0.41 (−0.52 to 1.00) | ||||
| Non-DUI women | 3894 | 0.47 (−0.52 to 1.00) | ||||
| DUI men | 1330 | 0.38 (−0.47 to 1.00) | ||||
| DUI women | 325 | 0.38 (−0.47 to 1.00) | ||||
| Beseler et al. (2010) | College students | Survey-specific | 353 | Current | 10g | 0.37 (−0.21 to 0.74) |
| Hagman & Cohn (2011) | College students | CIDI-SAM | 396 | Current | 11 | 0.45 (−0.38 to 0.79) |
| Ehlke et al. (2012) | NSDUH 2009 | SAMHSA | 4605h | Current | 11 | 0.06 (−0.54 to 0.97) |
| Kuerbis et al. (2013b) | NSDUH 2009 | SAMHSA | 3412i | Current | 11 | 0.16 (−0.48 to 0.90) |
| Hagman & Cohn (2013) | NSDUH 2009 | SAMHSA | 3806j | Current | 11k | −0.31 (−0.68 to 0.98) |
| Rose et al. (2012) | NSDUH 2002–2008 | SAMHSA | 9356l | Current | 11 | −0.14 (−0.68 to 0.48) |
| Harford et al. (2009) | NSDUH 2002–2005 | SAMHSA | 133 231 | Current | 11 | −0.05 (−0.65 to 0.94) |
| Men, age 12–17 years | 11 651 | −0.18 (−0.56 to 0.98) | ||||
| Men, age 18–25 years | 27 377 | −0.09 (−0.64 to 0.96) | ||||
| Men, age 26+ years | 25 872 | 0.04 (−0.64 to 0.99) | ||||
| Women, age 12–17 years | 12 304 | −0.08 (−0.51 to 0.97) | ||||
| Women, age 18–25 years | 29 331 | 0.04 (−0.62 to 0.99) | ||||
| Women, age 26+ years | 26 696 | 0.30 (−0.52 to 0.90) | ||||
| Srisurapanont et al. (2012) | Thai-NMH survey | MINI-Thai | 3718 | Current | 7 | 0.54 (−0.54 to 0.93) |
| Men | 3174 | 0.25 (−0.45 to 0.52) | ||||
| Women | 544 | 0.57 (−0.54 to 0.96) | ||||
| Adolescents | 272 | 0.29 (−0.49 to 0.71) | ||||
| Adults | 3446 | 0.54 (−0.43 to 0.96) | ||||
| Duncan et al. (2011) | MOAFTS | SSAGA | 2835 | Lifetime | 11 | 0.19 (−0.72 to 0.71) |
| Women, age 18–20 years | 1158 | 0.23 (−0.75 to 0.99) | ||||
| Women, age 21–25 years | 1677 | 0.19 (−0.72 to 0.99) | ||||
| Derringer et al. (2013) | MTFS and SAGE | SSAGA | 6597 | Lifetime | 7 | 0.54 (−0.57 to 0.93) |
| Gilder et al. (2011)m | American Indians | SSAGA | 530 | Lifetime | 10 | 0.28 (−0.29 to 0.86) |
| Gelhorn et al. (2008) | Mixed adolescentsn | CIDI-SAM | 5587 | Lifetime | 11 | 0.33 (−0.18 to 0.85) |
| Bond et al. (2012); | ED patients | CIDI V1.0 | 3191 | Current | 12 | 0.09 (−0.58 to 0.70) |
| Borges et al. (2010, 2011); | ||||||
| Cherpitel et al. (2010) | ||||||
| Argentina | 662 | 0.16 (−0.45 to 0.80) | ||||
| Mexico | 547 | 0.17 (−0.49 to 0.80) | ||||
| Poland | 1098 | −0.01 (−0.75 to 0.73) | ||||
| USA | 884 | 0.18 (−0.42 to 0.73) | ||||
| Hasin et al. (2012)c | Clinical | PRISM | 543 | Current | 11 | 0.26 (−0.66 to 0.89) |
| Langenbucher et al. (2004) | Clinical | CIDI-SAM | 372 | Lifetime | 9 | 0.31 (−0.41 to 0.76) |
| Wu et al. (2009) | Clinical | DSM-IV checklist | 462 | Current | 7 | 0.32 (−0.61 to 0.82) |
| Wu et al. (2012) | Clinical | DSM-IV checklist | 671 | Current | 7 | 0.50 (−0.68 to 1.00) |
| Martin et al. (2006) | Clinical adolescents | SCID | 464 | Lifetime | 11 | 0.26 (−0.41 to 0.85) |
| Edwards et al. (2013) | VATSPSUD | SCID | 7454 | Lifetime | 11 | 0.49 (−0.14 to 0.68) |
| Kuerbis et al. (2013a) | SARD | SCID | 461 | Lifetime | 11 | 0.40 (−0.48 to 0.93) |
IRT, Item response theory; NESARC, National Epidemiological Study on Alcohol and Related Conditions; AUDADIS-IV, Alcohol Use Disorder and Associated Disabilities Interview Schedule-IV; NLAES, National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Study; WHO/ISBRA, World Health Organization/International Society on Biomedical Research Collaborative Study; NSMHWB, National Survey of Mental Health and Well-Being (Australia); CIDI, Composite International Diagnostic Interview; COGA, Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism; SSAGA, Semi-Structured Assessment for the Genetics of Alcoholism; DUI, driving under the influence; SAM, Substance Abuse Module; NSDUH National Survey of Drug Use and Health; SAMHSA, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; Thai-NMH Survey, Thai National Mental Health Survey; MINI-Thai, Mini International Neuropsychiatric Inventory, Thai module; MOAFTS, Missouri Adolescent Female Twin Study; MTFS, Minnesota Twin Family Study; SAGE, Study of Addiction: Genes and Environment; ED, emergency department, PRISM, Psychiatric Research Interview for Substance and Mental Disorders; DSM, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; SCID, Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV; VATSPSUD, Virginia Adult Twin Study of Psychiatric and Substance Use Disorders; SARD, Substance Abuse Research Demonstration.
Spearman rank-order correlation. Values represent median correlations between reported threshold estimates. Values in parentheses represent the range of correlations across samples. Note that estimates are probably positively biased due to imposed constraints on severity parameters in articles where multiple subsamples were analysed and differential item functioning assessed.
Past-year drinkers.
We could not confirm the reported metric for the IRT parameters, but based on the description and software used an IRT parameterization seemed likely.
≥ 12 Drinks in the past year and ever drank 5+ drinks on ≥ 1 occasion.
≥ 12 Drinks in the past year.
Young adult (18–24 years) subsample only.
Authors created a combined measure of interpersonal and legal problems criteria.
College students.
Age 50+ years.
Non-college, age 18–25 years.
Tolerance severity not reported.
Adolescent and young adult drinkers (12–21 years) only.
We selected the authors’ ‘once per month’ binge drinking criteria for comparison of the IRT thresholds. Using the other criteria resulted in trivially different associations.
Combination of community, adjudicated and clinical individuals.