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The AUDIT is the most widely used alcohol-use screen in the world. WHO developed it for primary-care settings, and the same 10 items work in mental-health practice — at intake to set a baseline, during treatment to track change, or as the first formal step in an SBIRT (Screening, Brief Intervention, Referral to Treatment) sequence.

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What it measures

Hazardous and harmful alcohol use across three subscales:
  • Consumption (items 1–3) — frequency, typical quantity, frequency of heavy drinking. These three items are also published as a standalone brief screen (AUDIT-C).
  • Dependence symptoms (items 4–6) — loss of control, neglected obligations, morning drinking
  • Alcohol-related problems (items 7–10) — guilt, blackouts, injuries, others’ concern

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When to send it

  • Intake substance-use baseline for any adult client
  • Routine re-screening during treatment that touches substance use
  • Pre/post for brief-intervention work
  • When a CAGE-AID or AUDIT-C surfaces a positive flag and you want the fuller picture
The 10 items take about 3 minutes. Send it async or pull it up in-session on the practitioner-private notes panel — either way, the score lands as soon as the client submits.

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How Rivet scores it

Sum of 10 items, range 0–40. Items 1–8 are 0–4 frequency scales; items 9 and 10 are 0/2/4 (No / Yes, not in the last year / Yes, in the last year). The three subscales (Consumption 0–12, Dependence 0–12, Alcohol-related problems 0–16) each surface their own score alongside the total — useful when the subscale profile matters more than the headline number (high consumption with low dependence reads very differently from the inverse).

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Cutoffs

  • ≥8 — WHO hazardous-use threshold (the standard cutoff)
  • ≥7 sometimes used for women and adults 65+ (Reinert & Allen 2007)
  • ≥20 — probable dependence, further diagnostic evaluation

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AUDIT vs AUDIT-C, CAGE-AID and DAST-10

Four alcohol and drug screens, and the choice is mostly about how much time you have and what you need the answer for.
  • vs AUDIT-C — the first three AUDIT items, the consumption questions, on their own. It flags hazardous drinking in under a minute but tells you nothing about dependence symptoms or the problems the drinking is causing. Use it as a routine intake screen and follow a positive with the full AUDIT.
  • vs CAGE-AID — four yes/no questions covering alcohol and drugs together. The fastest thing here and the least sensitive; it raises a flag rather than measuring severity.
  • vs DAST-10 — the drug counterpart. The AUDIT covers alcohol only, so if substances other than alcohol are in the picture, DAST-10 is the companion instrument, not a substitute.
  • vs CRAFFT — for clients aged 12 to 21. The AUDIT was validated in adults.
The AUDIT is the one to reach for when you want severity rather than a flag: three subscales covering consumption, dependence and consequences, and bands that distinguish hazardous drinking from probable dependence.

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Is it free to use?

Yes. The WHO’s licence permits free reproduction and translation for non-commercial purposes provided the source is cited. The citation travels with the template.

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Citation

Saunders, J. B., Aasland, O. G., Babor, T. F., de la Fuente, J. R., & Grant, M. (1993). Development of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT): WHO Collaborative Project on Early Detection of Persons with Harmful Alcohol Consumption. Addiction, 88(6), 791–804. Manual: Babor, T. F., Higgins-Biddle, J. C., Saunders, J. B., & Monteiro, M. G. (2001). The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test: Guidelines for Use in Primary Care (2nd ed.). World Health Organization. WHO licenses the AUDIT for free reproduction and translation for non-commercial purposes provided the source is cited.

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When not to use it

The AUDIT covers the past 12 months — it’s a screening and severity tool, not a real-time monitoring instrument. For frequent re-administration during active treatment, the 3-item AUDIT-C captures consumption change on a shorter loop. For non-alcohol substances, use DAST-10; for combined alcohol-and-drug screening in 4 items, use CAGE-AID.

AUDIT-C

The 3-item consumption short-form.

DAST-10

The drug-use counterpart for non-alcohol substances.