Question

Dr Lam and Dr Fine want to determine how much alcohol their patients consume. As you are a health psychologist and researcher, they seek your advice about devising a patient survey for this purpose.

In your advice, you mention several sources of possible inaccuracy in self-report measures of alcohol consumption. You also advise on strategies to help minimise this inaccuracy and discuss possible use of a ‘gold standard’ against which the self-report measure might be compared.

1. What are the reasons for possible inaccuracy you identify, and the strategies you advise may help address these?
2. How do you describe what a ‘gold standard’ is, and what gold standard measures can you discuss for the self- report of alcohol consumption?

Answer 1

The patients consume a certain amount of alcohol. As a health psychologist and researcher, a patient survey is devised.

The psychometric test called AUDIT short form for the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test is often considered to be the gold standard of screening instruments. But it is still vulnerable to some criticisms. The test has 10 items that consist of assessing the quantity and frequency of drinking.

Sources of possible inaccuracy in self-report measure of alcohol of a gold standard: To assess alcohol consumption levels in large populations, researchers often rely on self-report measures. However, these approaches are associated with several limitations, particularly underreporting. The use of noninvasive biomonitoring approaches may help validate self-report alcohol consumption measurements and thus improve their accuracy. Two such devices currently are available, the WrisTASTM and SCRAMTM devices, both of which measure alcohol vapors emitted through the skin after alcohol consumption. Many self-report alcohol misuse measures are written at a high reading-grade level, the consideration of readability is important when selecting measures for use in research and practice settings.

Reasons for possible inaccuracies and Strategies to help address these inaccuracies

• Be careful while framing your survey questionnaire
• Keep your questions short and clear
• Avoid leading questions
• Avoid or break down difficult concepts
• Use interval questions
• Keep the time period short and relevant
• Provide a simple, exhaustive set of answer options
• Use precise, simple language
• Structure your survey appropriately
• Personalize the survey by keeping your target audience in mind
• Continuously track the metrics to be measured

In medicine and statistics, a gold standard test is usually the diagnostic test or benchmark that is the best available under reasonable conditions. A gold standard is the most accurate test possible without restrictions. Gold standard measures for self-report of alcohol consumption must consist of the points that were mentioned above. A researcher/psychometrician must be alert about the possible errors that a survey could have. Therefore it is necessary that the researcher looks for validity and reliability when making a psychometric test, especially in the case of alcohol consumption. There are small things to be considered like the background, sex, socio-economic status, and education of the people taking such surveys. These factors matter as they can give some context about the population that consumes alcohol. Such surveys also need to be aware of the literacy rate of the survey taker as some concepts and vocabulary may be difficult for some to understand. Hence, the survey language and words must also be simple and clear for the test taker to understand fully in order to gain correct data from people.