The role of nonspecific and specific risk factors in the prediction of adolescent drinking

ANGELINA PILATTI; JUAN CARLOS GODOY; SILVINA BRUSSINO

Sao Paulo

Congreso; V Latin American Society for Biomedical Research Alcoholism Meeting; 2011

Society for Biomedical Research Alcoholism

Introduction: A broad range of risk factors increase the likelihood of alcohol use and abuse in children and adolescents. These risk factors can be categorized in two big groups: nonspecific risk factors (those that may influence many forms of problems behaviors) and specific risk factors (those that are directly related to alcohol use and abuse). Goal: to assess the predictive utility of two nonspecific risk factors (personality traits and antisocial behaviors) and two specific risk factors (peers‟ alcohol use and alcohol expectancies) over frequency and quantity of alcohol use. Participants: A sample of 249 adolescents (Mean age= 14.77, SD= 1.37; 56.6% female) attending three private high schools within Cordoba, Argentina took part of the study. Measures: Demographic information; Alcohol consumption; Peer‟s alcohol use; Big Five Questionnaire for Adolescents (Cupani & Ruarte, 2008); Alcohol Expectancy Questionnaire for Adolescents (Pilatti et al., 2010); an ad-hoc measure of Impulsivity, Aggressive and Antisocial Behaviors. Data analyses: A univariate and bivariate description of the data was performed. A series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses was carried out to examine the unique contribution of each risk factor. Results: Positive associations were found between frequency and quantity of drinking and extraversion, peers‟ alcohol use, impulsivity, aggressive and antisocial behaviors, and two of positive alcohol expectancies‟ scales. Negative associations were found between drinking measures and responsibility, and all negative alcohol expectancies‟ scales. Extraversion, antisocial behaviors, peers‟ alcohol use and negative mood alcohol expectancies were the best predictors of drinking quantity while age, extraversion, antisocial behaviors, peers‟ alcohol use and relaxation alcohol expectancies were the factors that better predicted drinking frequency. These results support previous studies that highlighted the utility of personality traits, externalizing disorders, and alcohol expectancies in predicting drinking behavior among adolescents. However, opposite to what was expected, alcohol expectancies regarding an improvement in social relationships didn‟t uniquely predict drinking frequency and quantity. In fact, although previous studies with Argentinean adolescents (Pilatti et al., 2010; Pilatti et al., 2011) supported the reported association between alcohol expectancies regarding social improvement, this result wasn‟t found in the present study.