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Alcohol Screening

What does FAST stand for and what is it?

FAST stands for Fast Alcohol Screening Test, and is a simple four question screening tool used to assess a person’s alcohol intake. The results help identify those individuals who may be drinking at a harmful level or those at an increasing risk of drinking at harmful levels.1

  • There are four questions in FAST, however you may only need to answer the first question depending on the answer given.
  • Each question has a score between 0-4 points.
  • These points are added together to provide a total score of between 0 and 16.
  • This total score is used to assess a person’s relationship with alcohol.

When and where should FAST be used?

All hospital admitted adult patients should be screened using FAST (or a similar screening tool). The majority of patients will be screened by a healthcare professional when they attend A&E, but if this is not possible, the patients should be screened as soon as possible within the ward they have been admitted to.1

What are the FAST questions?

The following FAST questions are asked and the answers recorded in the right hand column of the FAST form. The last column has been filled in as an example:1

FAST results

Once FAST has been completed, the final column (featured on the previous slide) should be added together.

An overall total score of 3 of more is FAST positive

The next steps are dependent on the total score:1

  • 0-2 No action required.
  • 3+ (FAST positive) These patients are at an increasing or higher risk of hazardous/harmful drinking and for higher scores may be potentially addicted to/dependent on alcohol. It may be advisable for the patient to complete a full AUDIT questionnaire to further understand their relationship with alcohol. It is appropriate to conduct a brief intervention with the patient at this stage.

Contents

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  • References

    1. Guidance Alcohol use screening tests, Gov.uk. Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/alcohol-use-screening-tests Last accessed November 2023.

    KKI/GB/PAB/0272 November 2023