Facebook points to problem drinkers

That Facebook friend who always posts about getting "totally wasted"?

He might have a real-life drinking problem, new research shows.

College students with Facebook photos or posts about drinking excessively or blacking out were much more likely to earn high scores on a screening for possible alcohol abuse.

The study, published this week in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, analyzed 224 undergraduates at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Washington in Seattle whose Facebook profiles were visible to the public.

Nearly 60 percent of students with profiles that referenced intoxication or "problem drinking" later scored above the cutoff for at-risk drinking on a screening in person. That compares with 38 percent of people whose Facebook profiles had less problematic displays of alcohol use and 23 percent of profiles that were alcohol-free.

"We apply clinical judgments to what patients say in the office," said Dr. Megan Moreno, one of the study's authors. "The same things can apply to what they're telling us on Facebook."

It's tough to screen college students for at-risk drinking, the study says, "as many students do not seek routine or preventative health care at student health centers." As a result, only 12 percent of students report being screened.

Maybe dorm advisers who now use Facebook to flag a party they might need to bust could be trained to recognize their residents' problematic posts about drinking, Moreno said.

Moreno, a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison whose specialty is the treatment of adolescents, initiated the study based on frequent questions from patients' family members.

"They were seeing troubling references on Facebook and wanted to know when to ask if they were OK," she said. "How can we use this study to empower them, to help them realize that yes, your concerns are warranted?"