The Prediction of Alcohol Use Disorder: A Scoping Review

The prediction of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) may help to alleviate the number of deaths caused by alcohol related diseases, which had amounted to 3.3 million in 2014, worldwide. This article reports on the results of a scoping review of literature which focused on the prediction of AUD. A search in the academic databases including Medline, Web of Science and EBSCOhost had identified 28 articles which were published from 1980 to 2018, and which fulfilled our inclusion criteria related to the prediction of AUD. The findings suggest that research focusing on the prediction of AUD has been solid, with majority of the investigations focusing on genetics and family history, and psychological factors. It was observed that no study had tried to extract the predictor variables of AUD from their collected samples. Further, while a few studies had applied the machine learning approach in this domain, most investigations were based on statistical methods. Our review also suggests that compared to other regions where the rate of harmful drinking and mortality caused by alcoholism is high, Denmark is a country that has been less explored.