Klaus-Dieter Gorenc

A cross-cultural study: a comparison of German, Spanish and Ecuadorian alcoholics using the Munich Alcoholism Test (MALT).

Having validated the Munich Alcoholism Test in three different countries (Germany, Spain, and Ecuador), it was determined that five of the 31 items of the test were very consistent in revealing similarities among these three alcoholic populations.

Brief Alcoholism Screening Questionnaire: Establishment and Validity in Taiwanese

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE There has been a marked increase in the prevalence of alcoholism in the Taiwanese population over the past 6 decades. This study was designed to establish a Taiwanese Brief Alcoholism Screening Questionnaire (BASQ) for use in early detection in medical and public health settings. METHODS Interview data were collected from the database of the Taiwan Psychiatric Epidemiological Project (TPEP). The TPEP interviews had been conducted using the Chinese-modified version of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS-CM) that included a section on alcoholism diagnosis. Data collected from a community sample of 13,373 subjects was used in this study. Twenty nine DIS-CM items for alcoholism diagnosis were entered into an analytic model with 7 statistical filters to identify cross-cultural items. A brief alcoholism screening questionnaire was constructed using these selected items. The validity of the questionnaire was tested in subjects (n = 457) recruited from a local medical center, a hospital clinic, and an alcoholism clinic of a psychiatric center. RESULTS Four cross-cultural items were identified and the BASQ was constructed. This BASQ had a best cut-off point of 3 with adequate sensitivity (0.86 to 0.88), specificity (0.88 to 0.89), and positive prediction rate (0.90 to 0.91). It detected a varying prevalence of alcoholism (10.1 to 90.3%) in diverse clinical settings. CONCLUSIONS A 4-item BASQ was established with adequate validity for clinical and public health application in the early detection of alcoholism in Taiwanese subjects.

Comparison of Drinking Patterns among German, Spanish and Ecuadorian Alcoholics

The Munich-Alcoholism-Test (MALT) consists of two parts. The first part of the test has seven items which are answered by the physician (MALT-F) and the second is a self-assessment section comprising 24 items answered by the patient (MALT-S). This test explores three aspects which are relevant to the diagnosis of alcoholism: drinking patterns and approaches, psychological and social damages and finally somatic disturbances (1).

El efecto de la adhesión religiosa y los patrones de consumo de alcohol

En 1985, Beltran sotuvo que toda religion trae consigo una ideologia, la cual condiciona las actitudes de sus practicantes e influye en su comportamiento. Esto se demostro en el terreno impirico con respecto a los patrones de consumo de alcohol en una muestra aleatoria constotuida por 714 probandos, que fueron medidos con el Test de Alcoholismo Munich(MALT)

Los suicidios sin registrar en México y Ecuador: un estudio comparativo

To demonstrate empirically the benefits of an indirect method comprised of a simple proportional imputation formula, the number of miscoded suicides in Mexico and Ecuador was compared, In the five-year-period analyzed the number of under-reported suicides per 100 000 was significantly higher in Mexico (41. 95) than in Ecuador (3.57). Regarding sex, in Mexico there were more under-reported suicide cases among females than among males. Independent of the country, it was established that the percentage of under-reported cases in males was higher when they involved passive or soft methods of self-destruction in comparison with more active or harder methods that were utilized in the cases of females