CAGE QUESTIONNAIRE FOR SCREENING AND COMBATING MISUSE OF ALCOHOL

Accordingly to DSM-5, disorders related to alcohol dependency are associated to its abusive use that leads to clinical and social economic damage. Despite the impact of this disease on the subject's life and on the society, studies show that primary care physicians seldom do the properly approach of the issue. Knowing that the first step to elaborate health strategies is tracking problems, questionnaires as AUDIT and CAGE were created to get through the taboo that is the incorrect use of alcohol, one of the most significant causes of mortality on the health system, involved in chronic diseases, violent deaths and car accidents. Being aware of it all, we decided to apply the questionnaire CAGE on rural community of the Brazilian Northeast called Resistência Potiguar. This questionnaire was chosen because of its practicality and its high sensibility and specificity (46-100% and 63-96%). Finally, at 40 of the 120 houses of the community, we had positive results in about 50% of the tests what reveals a high rate of dependency as others studies made on similar communities made us expect. After this first approach professional teams will make groups of psychology support and will develop the local economy on social economy basis in the pursuit of their empowerment, introducing them on the process to heal these and others disorders.