Where do heavy drinking college students experience alcohol consequences and where are they perceived to be normative?

Harm from others' drinking among young adults in Taiwan: Predictors and deteriorating quality of life

INTRODUCTION

This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of different forms of harm from others' drinking (HFOD), predictors and the relationship with multi-dimensional quality of life among young adults in an emerging alcohol market in Asia-Taiwan.

METHODS

Data were extracted from a 2018 household survey with national representativeness on substance use experiences. The analytic sample comprised 4901 participants aged 18-34. Eight items were used to measure HFOD experiences. Five-dimensional quality of life was assessed by the EQ-5D-5L. Multivariable regressions with complex survey analyses were performed to estimate the prevalence and risk association.

RESULTS

Almost 4.2% of young adults experienced any form of HFOD; psychological harm occurred more prevalently than physical harm (3.7% and 1.5%, respectively). Those aged 25-29 and 30-34 had a two- to three-fold risk of HFOD compared with those aged 18-24. Both non-drunk drinking and drunk drinking were associated with an increased risk of psychological HFOD (adjusted odds ratio 2.36 and 5.89, respectively), whereas the risk of physical HFOD was related only to drunk drinking (adjusted odds ratio 7.8). Psychological HFOD victimisation emerged as the strongest predictor for deteriorated quality of life (adjusted b -0.14; 95% confidence interval -0.24, -0.04), especially in the dimensions of pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression. Among HFOD victims, only 33% sought help.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

The HFOD among young adults, commonly exhibited in psychological form, was linked with deteriorated quality of life; nonetheless, young HFOD victims are under-recognised. When devising interventions for alcohol harm, developmental perspectives should be integrated into policies implemented in healthcare and community settings.

Anxiety connects social media use to food and alcohol disturbance and disordered eating when social support is low

Food and alcohol disturbance (FAD) is an understudied form of disordered eating, in which the consumption of calories is restricted in preparation for drinking alcohol. Guided by previous literature, the present study examined the direct, indirect, and interactive relationships between social media use, anxiety, social support, FAD, and disordered eating among young adults. Recruited from a large southwestern public university, the sample included 679 undergraduate students who completed an online survey in spring of 2022 and who indicated that they consume alcohol and are 18 to 29 years old. Two moderated mediation analyses assessed the indirect effects of anxiety on the relationships between social media use with FAD and disordered eating, and the conditional contribution of social support. Results indicated that social media use was related to disordered eating both directly and indirectly through anxiety, but it was only related to FAD through anxiety. Furthermore, indirect effects connecting social media use to FAD and disordered eating were conditional upon social support. Our findings suggest FAD and disordered eating may be coping mechanisms for anxiety stemming from social media exposure, though these associations appear to be attenuated when social support is high. As such, these findings may be relevant for shaping future intervention and prevention efforts for emerging adults experiencing FAD and disordered eating.

Whose Approval Matters Most? Examining Discrepancies in Self- and Other- Perceptions of Drinking

BACKGROUND

Research demonstrates that perceptions of others' attitudes toward drinking behaviors (injunctive norms) are strong predictors of alcohol consumption and problems. Personalized normative feedback (PNF) aims to reduce the discrepancy between one's perception of others' attitudes toward drinking and others' actual attitudes toward drinking. An implicit assumption of PNF is that self and (perceived) other attitudes toward drinking are aligned (thus, shifting one's perceptions of others' attitudes shifts one's own attitudes). However, there is minimal research on the extent to which alignment (or discrepancy) in self-other attitudes toward drinking is associated with alcohol-related outcomes.

METHODS

College students (N = 1,494; Mage = 20.11, 61.0% female, 66.4% White) who endorsed past-month heavy episodic drinking reported injunctive norms toward drinking on weekends, drinking daily, drinking to black out, and drinking and driving. Participants reported their perceptions of attitudes toward these drinking behaviors for three reference groups: close friends, typical university-affiliated peers, and parents. Outcomes included weekly drinking, alcohol problems, and alcohol-related risk.

RESULTS

Response surface analyses indicated that alignment in approval (versus alignment in disapproval) of drinking demonstrated a linear association with alcohol-related outcomes. Discrepancies in self-peer and self-parent attitudes were associated with alcohol-related outcomes and one's own attitudes (versus one's ratings of others' attitudes) of drinking were more strongly associated with outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS

Results provide evidence of how self-other discrepancies in attitudes toward drinking are associated with alcohol-related outcomes. Future work is needed to test whether self-other discrepancies in attitudes toward drinking impacts response to norms-based interventions.

Longitudinal examination of high-risk drinking contexts: Daytime drinking, pregaming, and drinking games linked to high-risk alcohol use and negative consequences in young adults

BACKGROUND

The contexts in which young adults drink alcohol play a salient role in alcohol-related outcomes and negative consequences at an event-level, but less is known about longitudinal risks. We collected longitudinal monthly data across 2 years on (a) daytime drinking, (b) pregaming/pre-partying, and (c) playing drinking games. We then examined associations between drinking in these contexts and within-person variability in alcohol consumption, consequences, and simultaneous alcohol and marijuana (SAM) use in a given month. We also examined the extent to which drinking in these contexts predicted hazardous drinking (using Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) scores) at a distal follow-up timepoint, controlling for baseline AUDIT scores.

METHOD

A community sample of 759 young adults (Mage  = 21.1 years; 56.4% female) completed monthly surveys for 24 consecutive months and a distal 30-month follow-up. Multilevel models estimated within- and between-person associations between drinking context frequencies (daytime drinking, pregaming, drinking games) and alcohol-related outcomes (weekly consumption, consequences, SAM use). A single-level negative binomial regression tested associations between drinking context frequency averages across a two-year period and changes in AUDIT scores from baseline to a follow-up 2.5 years later.

RESULTS

Over 75% of the sample of non-abstaining young adults reported drinking in each of the three contexts at least once during the 24-month period. Within-persons, young adults reported greater consumption, more negative consequences, and increased likelihood of SAM use during months that they drank in these contexts more often than usual. Each context was associated with negative consequences, even when controlling for alcohol use frequency. More frequent daytime drinking and pregaming, but not drinking games, were associated with increases in AUDIT scores at the 30-month follow-up, suggesting that there are potential long-term risks of drinking in these contexts.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings suggest that daytime drinking, pregaming, and playing drinking games are high-risk contexts in terms of month-to-month and long-term risks. Additional research is needed on the various contexts in which young adults drink alcohol and the extent to which contextual factors interact with one another to amplify/reduce risks and harms.