Alcohol Consumption and the CAGE Questionnaire in Korean Adults: Results from the Second Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

Abstract

We evaluated alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems in Korean adults by evaluating alcohol consumption and responses to the CAGE questionnaire obtained from the second Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The age-adjusted prevalence of males who consumed 0, 0.1-20, 20.1-40, or >40 g/day of alcohol were 28.0, 51.5, 12.5, and 8.0%, respectively; 26.9% of male drinkers were CAGE-positive (≥2 affirmative responses to the CAGE). The age-adjusted prevalence of females who consumed 0, 0.1-10, 10.1-20, or >20 g/day of alcohol were 67.7, 26.6, 3.9, and 1.8%; 11.9% of female drinkers were CAGE-positive. The risk factors for high alcohol consumption were old age, low education level, smoking, and drinking onset at young ages in male drinkers, whereas low education level and smoking in female drinkers. The risk factors for a positive CAGE were young age, marriage, low education level, smoking, high amount of alcohol consumed on a single occasion, and high drinking frequency in male drinkers, whereas high household income, ex-smoking, high amount of alcohol consumed on a single occasion, and high drinking frequency in female drinkers. Our results suggest that high alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems in Korean adults are not negligible and require intervention.

Informal Control by Family and Risk Markers for Alcohol Abuse/Dependence in Seoul

“…This is higher than the 10.5% of Korean women found using the same criterion in 2002 (W. MOHW, 2002) and the 11.9% found in 2008 (Park et al, 2008). Although this is a representative sample of Seoul, not South Korea, the larger number using more recent data suggests that the effects of changes in Korean women's drinking patterns may still be unraveling.…”

“…In 1993, 33% of Korean women used alcohol, but in 2001, this percentage was 60 (Ministry of Health and Welfare [MOHW], 2002). More recent research suggests that 11.9% of Korean female drinkers abused alcohol as measured by the CAGE Scale (Park, Kim, & Jhun, 2008) and that the lifetime prevalence of alcohol use disorders among Korean women has tripled (W. . The rate of any physical violence between spouses in the last 12 months in South Korea is 16.7% (Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, 2010), and any father IPV in the last year among families with children is 12.2% (Emery, Eremina, et al, 2015).…”

Casting Shadows on the Prevalence of Tanning Dependence: An Assessment of mCAGE Criteria

“…This also contradicts what is known about other addiction patterns (such as alcohol addiction), where dependence is associated with an increase in the time spent with substance consumption and the daily dosage as the addiction progresses. Accordingly, data from the USA, Korea and Germany have shown that drinkers with ≥ 2 positive CAGE scores drink more and more often than drinkers with < 2 positive CAGE items (30,31).…”

Prevalence and neuropsychiatric comorbidities of alcohol use disorders in an elderly Korean population

“…Although the aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 2 allele (ALDH2*2), which protects against a high levels of alcohol consumption, is more prevalent in Koreans than in Caucasians (Sun et al, 2002;Eng et al, 2007), Koreans are very permissive about older persons' drinking and drunkenness (Kim and Baik, 2004). In the second Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (K-NHANES) conducted in 2001, men aged 60 years or older had a higher risk of excessive and heavy drinking than those in their 20s (OR ¼ 3.57, 95% CI ¼ 2.29-5.56) (Park et al, 2008). In addition, there were ethnic differences in the level of response to alcohol even among East Asians.…”