To Drink or Not to Drink: Is That the Question? Examining Correspondence and Predictive Validity of Morning Drinking Intentions for Young Adults' Drinking Behaviors and Consequences

Real-time impaired control over drinking: The role of contextual influences during naturally occurring drinking episodes

BACKGROUND

Impaired control over drinking is a central feature of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), yet little within-person research on impaired control is available. As a result, there is little research regarding the dynamic impact of social drinking context on impaired control. The current study sought to fill these gaps, testing a sequential mediation model wherein social drinking context predicted episode-specific deviations in perceived impaired control, which indirectly predicted daily negative consequences via drinking more than planned. We also modeled if estimated blood alcohol concentration (eBAC) moderated associations between social context and perceived impaired control.

METHODS

Emerging adults (N = 131; 51.8 % female) completed 21 days of ecological momentary assessments, including assessments of past-night drinking and planned drinking on a given day, and event-contingent reports during acute drinking episodes.

RESULTS

At the episode-level, social drinking context predicted higher perceived impaired control than an individual's daily average. At the daily-level, social drinking context predicted higher perceived impaired control, which indirectly predicted more negative consequences than a person's average via drinking more than planned. There was a residual effect of social context on drinking more than planned and negative consequences, and of perceived impaired control on negative consequences above and beyond drinking more than planned. Episode-level relations between social context and perceived impaired control were potentiated at higher vs. lower eBACs than an individual's daily average, but the same pattern was not observed at the daily-level.

CONCLUSIONS

Just-in-time interventions may benefit from increasing perceptions of control over drinking behavior, particularly during social drinking episodes.

The theory of planned behavior and alcohol protective behavioral strategies: a prospective study examining the role of habit and gender invariance

OBJECTIVES

Alcohol Protective Behavioral Strategies (PBS) have consistently shown to be effective in reducing alcohol use and its associated consequences. We aimed to examine the explanatory value of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) for using five PBS, studying the role of habit, and its potential variation across genders.

METHODS

Targeted sampling was used to recruit 339 young adults in the community (women = 50.7%; mean age = 2.21[SD = 2.21]), who completed baseline and 2-month follow-up questionnaires.

RESULTS

The explained variance of the TPB ranged from 58-68% for intention to use PBS, and 18-50% for behavior. The inclusion of habit produced increases of 17-26% in explained variance in intention, while explained variance in behavior remained similar. Habit was the strongest predictor of intention to use PBS, followed by attitude. Except for one behavior (drinking slowly), habits did not moderate the intention-behavior relationship, and the explanatory value of the TPB did not differ across genders.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings support the utility of the TPB as an explanatory model of alcohol PBS, along with the need to include habits within the framework of dual-process models. Interventions aimed at promoting alcohol PBS could be optimized by targeting attitudes towards PBS and habits.