Abstract
It is estimated that 75–80% of the world's population regularly consumes caffeine.1,2 With recent research indicating that caffeine dependence needs to be addressed, the American Psychiatric Association 1 included Caffeine Use Disorder (CaUD) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5). The purpose of this study was to measure the occurrence and severity of CaUD by quantifying the criteria using the proposed novel method. A 28-question survey assessing caffeine use and the DSM-5 criteria for CaUD was administered via Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT). This study calculated four different ways of endorsing a symptom using a visual analog scale: scores ≥1, ≥11, ≥26, or ≥51. Using each of the four thresholds and the DSM-5's method for diagnosing CaUD (endorsement of the first three symptoms), diagnosis rates ranged from 23% to 57% depending on which threshold was used. We propose that a 1300-point scale and symptom count using the ≥51 threshold be utilized as an assessment tool of CaUD to measure its severity and frequency. Nineteen percent of participants from this study might benefit from seeking treatment according to this method.
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