Risky Single-Occasion Drinking and Disadvantaged Men: Will Recruitment Through Primary Care Miss Hazardous Drinkers?

Background Men who are socially disadvantaged are at a substantially higher risk of developing alcohol‐related diseases. People from deprived areas are known to be more difficult to recruit to research studies. As part of a feasibility assessment for an intervention study, 2 recruitment strategies w...

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Published in:Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research clinical and experimental research, 2013-09, Vol.37 (9), p.1577-1581
Main Authors: Crombie, Iain K., Falconer, Donald W., Irvine, Linda, Norrie, John, Williams, Brian, Slane, Peter W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Alcohol use
Binge Drinking
Binge Drinking - diagnosis
Binge Drinking - epidemiology
Binge Drinking - psychology
College students
Cross-Sectional Studies
Data Collection - methods
Feasibility Studies
Humans
Inequalities
Male
Men
Primary Health Care - methods
Recruitment
Residence Characteristics
Risky Single-Occasion Drinking
Studies
Vulnerable Populations - psychology
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Summary:Background Men who are socially disadvantaged are at a substantially higher risk of developing alcohol‐related diseases. People from deprived areas are known to be more difficult to recruit to research studies. As part of a feasibility assessment for an intervention study, 2 recruitment strategies were investigated. This article compares the drinking patterns of the disadvantaged men identified by the 2 strategies. Methods A cross‐sectional survey compared 2 strategies for recruiting disadvantaged men to a study on alcohol consumption: recruitment through general practice (GP) registers and through a community outreach strategy, respondent‐driven sampling (RDS). Men aged 25 to 44 years were recruited from deprived areas in the community. The entry criterion was binge drinking (≥8 units in a single session) at least twice in the previous 4 weeks. Demographic characteristics, total consumption of alcohol, frequency of binge drinking (≥8 units in a session), and heavy binge drinking (≥16 units in a session) were measured. Results Men recruited by RDS drank more than twice as much as the men recruited through GP (137 units in the previous 30 days compared with 62 units; p = 0.003). They also had many more binge drinking days: more than half (57%) of men from RDS had 6 or more binge drinking days in the previous 30 days, whereas only 16% of the GP sample had 6 or more binge drinking days (p = 0.001). Many more men recruited by RDS (37% vs. 5%; p = 0.002) had more than 5 very heavy drinking sessions in the previous month (≥16 units in a session). The RDS group also had fewer alcohol‐free days. Conclusions The 2 sampling strategies recruited different types of drinkers. The men recruited through RDS were much more likely to engage in frequent harmful drinking. The results indicate that the 2 methods recruit different samples of disadvantaged men. Intervention studies that are only conducted through primary care may miss many harmful drinkers.
ISSN:0145-6008
1530-0277
DOI:10.1111/acer.12123