title: Improving alcohol screening for college students: Screening for alcohol misuse amongst college students with a simple modification to the CAGE questionnaire.
abstract: To improve the CAGE (Cut down, Annoyed, Guilty, Eye opener) questionnaire's predictive accuracy in screening college students.
  
  
  
  The sample consisted of 219 midwestern university students who self-administered a confidential survey.
  
  
  
  Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, receiver operating characteristics (ROC), and Cronbach's alpha were used to analyze factor structure, validity, and reliability.
  
  
  
  The modified CAGE correctly classified students with alcohol abuse ("AA students"; area under the curve [AUC] = 0.7765) and students with alcohol dependency ("AD students"; AUC = 0.8392) more often than CAGE (AA students: AUC = 0.6977; AD students: AUC = 0.7437), and these differences are statistically significant (AA students: χ(2)(1) = 14.72, p < .001; AD students: χ(2)(1) = 7.71, p < .01). Using 2-point cut scores, CAGE correctly identified 59.38% of AD students as AD, whereas the modified CAGE correctly identified 87% of AD students as AD. Using 1-point cut scores, CAGE correctly identified 65% AA students, whereas the modified CAGE identified 85.29%.
  
  
  
  The modified CAGE has better accuracy than CAGE in predicting AA and AD among college populations.
authors.affiliation: a Declare Therapy Center, Department of Psychology, University of Cincinnati , Cincinnati , Ohio , USA.
authors.forename: Purcell
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.affiliation: b College of Public Health, Division of Health Services and Management & Policy, The Ohio State University , Columbus , Ohio , USA.
authors.forename: Taleed
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: El-Sabawi
authors.affiliation: c Department of Human Sciences , The Ohio State University , Columbus , Ohio , USA.
authors.forename: Causenge
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cangin
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014495:Universities / Q000458:organization & administration; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Abuse; CAGE; alcohol; dependence; screening