Symptom items (n = 37) that assessed DSM-IV AUD diagnoses in the NESARC and NESARC-III were virtually identical. However, 3 items were slightly reworded and 3 additional abuse questions appeared in the NESARC-III. Comparisons between DSM-IV 12-month AUD diagnoses with and without the additional questions yielded virtually identical prevalences (12.7% and 12.2%, respectively), with near-perfect concordance (κ = 0.98), which suggested that trivial differences between AUD operationalizations were not responsible for the changes reported herein.
