Abstract
A sample of 655 women was contacted whilst attending general practitioners' surgeries and questioned on numerous health and social matters. Follow-up interviews were held a year later in the women's homes and information on drinking behaviour and problems with drinking obtained. Almost 15% of the sample could be classified as problem drinkers on the basis of their responses to a ‘problems with drinking’ scale. Seven major variables were identified as being associated with problem drinking amongst these women. These included familial history of heavy drinking, depression, stress level, major life changes, reported alcohol consumption, usual type of leisure activities and abuse of substances such as coffee and tobacco which can result in dependency. Likelihood of problem drinking increased substantially with the number of adverse factors reported. It was concluded that knowledge of these factors would help the general practitioner in the identification of women with alcohol problems.