Alcohol, harmful use and dependence: Assessment using the WHO Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test tool in a South Indian fishermen community

Abstract

Background: Fishermen have a high burden of alcohol-related morbidity. The Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT) is used to classify individual to have harmful use of alcohol and probable alcohol dependence. Hence, this study was conducted among fishermen in a selected fishermen community in Puducherry, South India, to (a) assess the proportion of harmful alcohol use and probable dependence to alcohol among alcohol users using AUDIT tool and (b) find the sociodemographic factors associated with harmful alcohol use and probable dependence among alcohol users. Materials and Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was carried out among the fishermen above 18 years of age in a selected “fishing hamlet.” A house-to-house survey was conducted to identify the fishermen. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to obtain sociodemographic details. AUDIT tool was administered by interviewer to those fishermen who used alcohol in the past 1 year. Data were entered and analyzed using EpiData software. The proportion of harmful use of alcohol and probable dependence among alcohol users was expressed as percentage. Chi-square test was used to find association between sociodemographic factors with harmful use of alcohol and probable dependence. Results: Of 304 fishermen included in the study, 241 (79%) reported alcohol use in the past 1 year. Of 241 alcohol users, four-fifths (82%) had some formal education and two-thirds (67%) had monthly income <3000 INR. “Harmful use” of alcohol was noted in 76.8% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 71.1%–81.7%) and probable alcohol dependence in 12.4% (95% CI: 8.9%–17.2%). None of the individual characteristics of alcohol users were associated with either harmful use of alcohol or probable dependence. Conclusion: Among fishermen who use alcohol, eight out of ten have harmful use of alcohol. There is a need to screen for alcohol-related disorders among fisherman and adopt brief intervention strategies to counter problems of harmful use of alcohol.

Tackling alcoholism and domestic violence in fisheries—A new opportunity to improve well‐being for the most vulnerable people in global fisheries

“…(Male fisherman, Sri Lanka #11) Bhondve, Mahajan, Sharma, and Kasbe (2013), in a study of Mumbai fishermen found that alcohol consumption was more common amongst fishermen who were stressed, with 31.8% blaming stress as the reason for alcohol use and 20.8% fishermen believing that alcohol increases work efficiency.…”

Prevalence of alcohol consumption among seafarers and fishermen

“…Four of the 13 studies were conducted in Morocco, 2 studies in India, 1 study each was investigated in France, Croatia, Greece, Denmark, the Seychelles and the Philippines and 1 study was carried out anonymously. Eight of the 13 studies were conducted among fishermen [5,6,8,[10][11][12][13][14] and 5 among seafarers [15][16][17][18][19].…”

“…Three [5,6,11] of the 13 studies investigated the consumption of alcohol among seafarers and fishermen as the main question (Table 1). Ten studies focused on a different question and surveyed alcohol consumption only as an accompanying parameter or risk factor.…”

“…Six of the 13 identified studies did not define the meaning of alcohol consumption (Table 1) [10-13, 17, 18]. Based on AUDIT, 2 studies defined alcohol intake among users [5,6]. Fort et al [8] used AUDIT-C to show the possible dependence on alcohol, and they used an alcohol consumption profile to show consumers with excessive (67.7%) and without excessive (21.8%) profiles [8].…”

“…Two of the examined articles [5,6] used Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT) as a standardized questionnaire survey. AUDIT serves to identify persons with hazardous and harmful patterns of alcohol consumption.…”