Alcohol dependence figures in the swiss general population: a sisyphean challenge for epidemiologists.
BACKGROUND
Research in Switzerland and elsewhere calls for valid estimations of alcohol dependence figures at the population level. As none of the methodologies developed for this purpose has proven to possess higher validity over others, this study follows the idea of methodological triangulation and compares estimates to assess their convergence.


METHODS
This study considers 6 standard methodological approaches to derive 17 estimates for alcohol dependence in the Swiss general population.


RESULTS
Estimates from statistics on cirrhosis mortality and from the application of external pool estimates agree with the central tendency of adjusted estimates derived using standard alcohol-related screening tools in population surveys. The number of alcohol-dependent individuals living in Switzerland is expected to be close to 250,000 (i.e. approximately 3.9% of the population aged 15 or older).


CONCLUSIONS
Due to variations in estimates, it is difficult to report consistent figures for alcohol dependence at the general population level in Switzerland. Nonetheless, observation of an unambiguous central tendency and the convergence of estimates support their validity.
Kuendig
Hervé
H
Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems, Lausanne, Switzerland. hkuendig@sfa-ispa.ch
D000437:Alcoholism / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006306:Health Surveys / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008103:Liver Cirrhosis / Q000401:mortality*; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D013557:Switzerland / Q000453:epidemiology