Development of Hindi Version of Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT): An Update.

Sir,

Alcohol has been identified as a major contributor to global burden of disease. Excessive use of alcohol has been found to be associated with increased morbidity and mortality across all regions of the world. It has also been recognized as a major public health problem in South Asia including India.[1]

The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) suggested an increase in alcohol use among males in the NFHS-3 as compared to NFHS-2 as one-third of men reported alcohol use.[2] According to the Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health 2011, 25% and 15% of male and female drinkers, respectively, were identified as heavy episodic drinkers.[3] There has been an increase in per capita consumption of alcohol in India over the past few years, and the age of onset of alcohol use has also declined.[3]

Alcohol dependence, the most dysfunctional pattern of alcohol use, has gained most attention with regards to the disability associated with alcohol use. However, excessive use of alcohol in nondependent pattern is also associated with adverse consequences with experts estimating that a large proportion of harm attributable to alcohol may be related to harmful and hazardous use of alcohol rather than its use in dependent pattern.[4]

Alcohol use disorder identification test (AUDIT), developed by World Health Organization, has been found to be a reliable and valid tool for screening problem alcohol use.[5] Screening tests help to sort out persons who probably have a disease or problem from those who do not. Screening helps to categorize the individuals in different risk categories and subsequently make informed decisions about the nature and intensity of intervention that need to be offered.

The AUDIT was initially developed in English language and later has been translated, adapted, and validated in many languages. However, the Hindi translation of AUDIT is not available. A Hindi version of AUDIT is now being developed following permission from WHO.

The development of the Hindi version of the AUDIT is being carried out using the recommendations by Sousa and Rojjanasrirat.[6] The first stage of development of Hindi version of the AUDIT involved the steps of:

Translation of the AUDIT into the Hindi language;

Comparison of the two translated versions of the instrument (Hindi 1 and Hindi 2);

Synthesis I; blind back-translation of the preliminary initial translated version of the AUDIT;

Comparison of the two back-translated versions of the instrument (B-Hindi 1 and B-Hindi 2);

Synthesis II; pilot testing of the prefinal version of the AUDIT in Hindi with a monolingual sample;

Cognitive debriefing.

Following this procedure, the prefinal Hindi version of the AUDIT has been developed. It is proposed to carry out validation of the Hindi version of the AUDIT. This shall include the preliminary psychometric testing of the prefinal version of the translated AUDIT with a bilingual sample. Subsequently, full psychometric testing of the prefinal version of the translated instrument shall be carried out in a sample of the target population.

Financial support and sponsorship

WHO, Geneva, WHO-SEARO.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.