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Friday, May 24, 2013

Drinking motives moderate the impact of predrinking on heavy drinking on a given evening and related adverse consequences - An event-level study




To test whether (a) drinking motives predict the frequency of predrinking (i.e. alcohol consumption before going out); (b) drinking motives predict HDGE (heavy drinking on a given evening: 4+ for women, 5+ for men) and related adverse consequences (hangover, injuries, blackouts etc.) even when predrinking is accounted for, and (c) drinking motives moderate the impact of predrinking on HDGE and consequences.

Using the Internet-based cell phone-optimised assessment technique (ICAT), participants completed a series of cell phone questionnaires every Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening over five weeks.
 
French-speaking Switzerland.
 
183 young adults (53.0% female, mean age [SD] = 23.1 [3.1]) who completed 7,828 questionnaires on 1,441 evenings.
 
Drinking motives assessed at baseline, alcohol consumption assessed at 8 p.m., 9 p.m., 10 p.m., 11 p.m. and midnight and consequences assessed at 11 a.m. the next day.
 
Gender-separate multilevel models revealed that predrinking predicted HDGE (men: B = 2.17, p < .001; women: B = 2.12, p < .001) and alcohol-related consequences (men: B = 0.24, p < .01; women: B = 0.29, p < .001). Enhancement motives were found to predict HDGE (B = 0.48, p < .05) and related consequences (B = 0.09, p < .05) among men, while among women coping motives had the same effect (HDGE: B = 0.73, p < .001; consequences: B = 0.13, p < .01). With the exception of conformity motives among women (B = 0.54, p < .05), however, no drinking motive dimension predicted the frequency of predrinking, while coping and conformity motives moderated the impact of predrinking on HDGE (Men, conformity: B = -1.57, p < .05) and its consequences (Men, coping: B = -0.46, p < .01; women, coping: B = 0.76, p < .05).
 
Among young adults in Switzerland, heavy weekend drinking and the related consequences seem to result from the combination of predrinking, level of negative reinforcement drinking for women and positive reinforcement drinking for men.


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