RESUMEN
This study aimed to validate the Short Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test-Thai version-12 items (SMAST-T) compared to the psychiatrist's diagnosis based on DSM-III-R criteria, as a gold standard, among psychiatric patients residing in the northeast of Thailand. Sixty-one pairs of male cases with alcohol use disorders (AUD) and controls were collected through routine examination of psychiatric outpatients, 18-65 years old, who visited the Khon Kaen Psychiatric Hospital or the Northeast Drug Dependence Treatment Center, located in Khon Kaen Province, northeast Thailand, between November, 1996 and February, 1997. Controls were matched for each case in terms of age (+/-5 years), province and urbanization of residence. They were interviewed using the SMAST-T and a structured questionnaire. Receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed that the optimum cutoff point of 4 or over on the SMAST-T yielded the best sensitivity and specificity (96.7% and 95.1%, respectively), along with the area under the curve of 0.994, indicating that it was sensitive and specific in discriminating AUD from the non-AUD patients. Validation of the SMAST-T suggests its applicability as a screening interview questionnaire to detect AUD among northeast Thai males, with a specific cutoff point.