NIAAA Releases Free Simplified Screening Guide to Identify Underage Drinking

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) has released a new 2-question screening tool to help clinicians identify children and teenagers at risk for alcohol-related problems. The screening tool is an integral part of Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention for Youth: A Practitioner’s Guide, a free downloadable publication produced by NIAAA (in collaboration with the American Academy of Pediatrics, clinical researchers, and health-care practitioners) to help clinicians overcome time constraints and other barriers to youth alcohol screening.

“We know that alcohol is, by far, the drug of choice among youth,” said NIAAA acting director Kenneth R. Warren, PhD. “Underage drinking is also a marker for other unhealthy behaviors, and it often goes undetected. This new tool was designed to allow busy practitioners who manage the health and well-being of children and adolescents to conduct fast, effective alcohol screens and brief interventions.”

In addition to the 2-question screen, the guide presents the first youth alcohol risk estimator chart, which combines information about a patient’s age and drinking frequency to give a clinician a broad indication of the patient’s chances for having alcohol-related problems.

The complete guide is available for download on the NIAAA website at http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/Practitioner/YouthGuide/YouthGuide.pdf.