One in ten?
From Stuff, under the headline ‘One in 10 Kiwis now alcoholic‘
One in 10 New Zealanders could now be considered “alcoholic” according to new diagnostic criteria – but the majority of those with a drinking problem are unlikely to recognise it because the issue is so common.
The new estimate of 400,000 “alcoholics” in New Zealand – around 10 per cent of our 4.4 million population – was tallied up by Professor Doug Sellman from the National Addiction Centre at the University of Otago.
It is significantly higher than the Ministry of Health’s 2006 estimate which says 3 to 6 per cent of the population has an alcohol issue.
Sellman’s figures are based on the new diagnostic criteria for “alcohol use disorder” recently published in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association.
From the president of the American Society for Addiction Medicine, in a review of DSM-V
DSM-5 has “Alcohol Use Disorder,” which comes in mild, moderate and severe flavors, suggesting the inadequate pyramid approach. There are 11 possible symptoms of the “use disorder,” of which two are necessary to achieve a mild specifier, four for moderate and six for severe. “Alcohol use disorder is defined by a cluster of behavioral and physical symptoms,” the authors of DSM-5 state. I have no problem with that except that some may confuse “alcohol use disorder” with addictive disease or with alcoholism
Some may, indeed.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »