What it measures
Past-year alcohol consumption:- Frequency of drinking
- Typical quantity per drinking day
- Frequency of heavy episodic drinking (6+ drinks)
When to send it
- Mental-health intake when you want a brief substance-use baseline but not the full AUDIT
- Routine re-screening between full AUDIT administrations
- Embedded in a multi-measure intake panel where the time budget is tight
- US Department of Veterans Affairs uses AUDIT-C as the default routine alcohol screen — same logic applies in any high-volume primary-care or community-mental-health context
How Rivet scores it
Sum of 3 items, range 0–12.| Total | Band |
|---|---|
| 0–2 | Negative screen |
| 3 | Positive screen (women) |
| 4–6 | Positive screen — hazardous alcohol use (men) |
| 7–12 | Probable alcohol use disorder (Bradley et al. 2007) |
Cutoffs
- ≥3 for women, ≥4 for men — Bush et al. 1998. Sensitivity and specificity hold up well in community and primary-care populations.
- ≥7 — strong signal for probable alcohol use disorder; warrants a fuller diagnostic conversation.
Citation
Bush, K., Kivlahan, D. R., McDonell, M. B., Fihn, S. D., & Bradley, K. A. (1998). The AUDIT alcohol consumption questions (AUDIT-C): An effective brief screening test for problem drinking. Archives of Internal Medicine, 158(16), 1789–1795. Public domain — derived from the WHO AUDIT.When not to use it
The AUDIT-C tells you consumption is hazardous; it doesn’t tell you why or how much disability the drinking is causing. For dependence symptoms and alcohol-related problems (the other two AUDIT subscales), use the full AUDIT. For non-alcohol substance use, AUDIT-C is silent — use CAGE-AID or DAST-10.Related articles
AUDIT (full)
The full 10-item screen with three subscales.
CAGE-AID
The briefest combined alcohol-and-drug screen — 4 yes/no items.