Alcohol consumption is a complex entity to record faithfully in the health record. This is due to the variable quantity of ethanol in different drinks and the variable volume of bottles and containers. There has been an international effort to standardise the recording the amount of alcohol consumed by linking whole or half units to common drinks. The unit of alcohol is called a standard drink, but it varies quite widely between countries.

While the amount of alcohol consumed may be recorded as a volume, number of standard drinks or number of grams, it is usual to record the amount over a particular day, or the total over a week.

The OBSERVATION class in openEHR allows for summary totals to be recorded over a time period. So that it is possible to record the intake for a day or for a week (or some other time period).

The problem is that average consumption over a period of time would usually be expressed in, for example, g/day or std drinks per week. To allow statements about averages of daily or weekly intake, it is necessary to record the daily or weekly intake specifically.

The most appropriate way to manage this would seem to be able to record alcohol intake as an amount or volume against different types if required and use the interval event to describe the time period. This allows recording of 2 litres of wine in 2 hours, 48 x 300ml cans of beer in 24 hours.

For alcohol intake diaries, the measurement will be standard drinks or gms of alcohol per day (with the protocol recording the number of grams per standard drink). This can be summarised as weekly intake. This allows averaging over a period of time.