Statement of Purpose Alcohol-impaired driving contributes to more than 10,000 fatal motor vehicle crashes each year in the United States. Measuring alcohol-impaired driving at an individual-level is essential for research in the prevention of injuries and deaths from alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes. The objective of this review was to evaluate published survey studies that use self-report measures to assess alcohol-impaired driving.

Methods/Approach Electronic database searches on PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science were conducted to include journal articles assessing alcohol-impaired driving using a self-report measure. Eligible articles were (i) published in peer reviewed journals, (ii) written in English, (iii) used individuals as the units of analysis, and (iv) assessed alcohol-impaired driving by self-report. Articles were excluded if the impaired driving measure evaluated impaired driving of any substance other than alcohol. We extracted the items and scales used to assess self-report of alcohol-impaired driving and indices of reliability and validity.

Results The most common method used to assess alcohol-impaired driving in survey studies of individuals was asking participants to report if they consumed any drinks containing alcohol before driving. No studies assessed validity. Reliability was greatest for items asking participants to report driving after having ‘too much’ to drink.

Conclusion There are myriad self-report measures used to investigate alcohol-impaired driving, and there is a lack of consensus on a valid and reliable measure to use. Future studies should assess item and scale validity.

Significance Self-report measures provide a practical method for capturing alcohol-impaired driving behavior among individuals. However, the specific items and scales used to measure alcohol-impaired driving must be considered. Valid and reliable measures are necessary for detecting effective preventive interventions.