Trial reportDrug and alcohol dependence2017
The search for an elusive cutoff remains: Problems of binary classification of heavy drinking as an endpoint for alcohol clinical trials.
Trial report in Drug and alcohol dependence, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Reconsidering alcohol treatment non-responders: psychosocial functioning among heavy drinkers 3 years following treatment.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2021Trial
- An efficacy trial of adaptive interventions for alcohol use disorder.Journal of substance abuse treatment · 2021Trial
- The measurement of harm reduction goals and outcomes for substance use: Current state and future directions.Journal of prevention and health promotion · 2026Article
- Alcohol Use Disparities Among Transgender and Nonbinary Adults: An Intersectional Investigation.Drug and alcohol review · 2025Article
- Is internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy for alcohol use disorder equally effective for men and women? Implications of a secondary analysis of a clinical trial.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Consideration of an upper-bound continuous maximum drinks measure for adolescent binge and high-intensity drinking prevalence.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2021Article
- Mifepristone Decreases Chronic Voluntary Ethanol Consumption in Rhesus Macaques.The Journal of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics · 2020Article
- Can Alcohol Use Disorder Recovery Include Some Heavy Drinking? A Replication and Extension up to 9 Years Following Treatment.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2020Article
- Patterns of Cocaine Use During Treatment: Associations With Baseline Characteristics and Follow-Up Functioning.Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs · 2019Article
- Flexibly modeling alcohol use disorder risk: How many drinks should we count?Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors · 2019Article
- A quantification of the alcohol use-consequences association in college student and clinical populations: A large, multi-sample study.The American journal on addictions · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundTo examine whether a clinically meaningful alcohol consumption cutoff can be created for clinical samples, we used receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves to derive gender-specific consumption cutoffs that maximized sensitivity and specificity in the prediction of a wide range of negative consequences from drinking.
methodsWe conducted secondary data analyses using data from two large clinical trials targeting alcohol use disorders: Project MATCH (n=1726) and COMBINE (n=1383).
resultsIn both studies, we found that the ideal cutoff for men and women that maximized sensitivity/specificity varied substantially both across different alcohol consumption variables and alcohol consequence outcomes. Further, the levels of sensitivity/specificity were poor across all consequences.
conclusionsThese results fail to provide support for a clinically meaningful alcohol consumption cutoff and suggest that binary classification of levels of alcohol consumption is a poor proxy for maximizing sensitivity/specificity in the prediction of negative consequences from drinking. Future research examining consumption-consequence associations should take advantage of continuous measures of alcohol consumption and alternative approaches for assessing the link between levels of consumption and consequences (e.g., ecological momentary assessment). Clinical researchers should consider focusing more directly on the consequences they aim to reduce instead of relying on consumption as a proxy for more clinically meaningful outcomes.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.