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Determinants of Adolescent Alcohol Abuse: what role do older siblings and parents play?

Korn, Lena (2009) Determinants of Adolescent Alcohol Abuse: what role do older siblings and parents play?

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Abstract:Nowadays, adolescents grow up in a society in which consuming alcohol belongs to everyday’s social life. Besides regular alcohol use, the so-called binge drinking (5 or more glasses of alcoholic beverage on one occasion within the last month) is a widely spread occurrence. A lot of problematic consequences of adolescent alcohol use and abuse clearly give arguments for the inquiry of reasons for this behaviour. Hence, the purpose of this study was to investigate several variables as possible determinants of adolescent binge drinking behaviour and the amount of alcohol usually consumed. These variables were the cognitive determinants of the Theory of Planned Behaviour with reference to adolescent alcohol use, as well as risk factors and protective factors represented by the external variables of older siblings (modeling, alcohol favouring behaviour) and parents (modeling, alcohol favouring behaviour, attempted and successful monitoring, rules). Self-report questionnaires were filled in by a sample of 107 adolescent students from class five at a German rural secondary school. A considerably high frequency of binge drinking and large amounts of consumed alcohol among adolescents were documented. According to our expectations, bivariate correlation analyses indicated significant associations between the variables of the TPB and most of the sibling and parent factors and the indicators for adolescent alcohol use chosen for this study. Simultaneous regression analyses were conducted in view of adolescents’ usually consumed number of glasses and revealed a comparable predictive power of siblings’ and parental alcohol use and characteristics and a considerable amount of explained variance by the variables of the TPB. Simultaneous regression analyses on adolescents’ binge drinking frequency showed highly predictive power of siblings’ characteristics and alcohol use, especially alcohol favouring behaviour. With regard to adolescent binge drinking behaviour, hierarchical regression analyses indicated an independent influence of siblings’ factors above parental influences. The results of this study emphasize the relevance of external social factors in the context of adolescent drinking behaviour. These findings suggest to take parental and, in particular, older siblings’ factors into consideration in regard to preventive interventions focussed on the reduction of adolescent alcohol use.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:77 psychology
Programme:Psychology BSc (56604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/59358
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