Alcohol use among abused and non-abused older persons aged 60–84 years: An European study

Abstract

Aims: Describing alcohol use by abuse type (e.g. psychological) and considering other factors (e.g. depression).

Methods: The respondents were 4467 (2559 women, 57.3%) randomly selected elders (60–84 years) from seven European cities. The cross-sectional data were collected with scales covering various areas and examined with bivariate/multivariate methods.

Findings: Psychologically abused elders were more often alcohol users than non-users (21.7% vs. 16.3%) and the opposite regarding financially abused elders (4.8% vs. 3.5%). Psychologically abused elders also had more often three or more drinks containing alcohol in a drinking day (21.1% vs. 16.1%) and six or more drinks on one occasion (24.5% vs. 18.3%). Psychological abuse, demographics/socio-economics (e.g. education), smoking and leisure activities were positively associated alcohol use, and being from certain countries (e.g. Italy), age (e.g. 80–84 years), depression and financial abuse negatively.

Conclusions: Across countries, 64.2% of the elders were drinkers. Some variables (e.g. psychological abuse) were positively related to alcohol use and others (e.g. depression) negatively. Many of the elders were exposed to abuse. Our findings may be useful to prevent/manage drinking and abuse among elders. However, alcohol use was influenced by various factors that need to be further elucidated, particularly the relation between abuse and drinking.

Notes

Notes

1. The Royal Colleges of Physicians, Psychiatrists and General Practitioners recommend 21 units for men and 14 units for women weekly. One drink represents one unit and is equivalent to 10 g of alcohol.

2. These countries were selected based on, among other things, geographical and cultural diversity as well as differences in alcohol use patterns.

3. PF and PFR are used to describe and analyst heterogeneity between countries.

4. Standard glasses of wine, vodka, etc.

5. Cronbach's alpha is a measure of reliability. It assesses the internal consistency or reliability of a psychometric test score for a sample of respondents.

6. The data set was first available for processing in January 2011 after input, etc. Respondents who did not want to do a face-to-face interview could self-respond and a questionnaire was sent to their homes. The self-response percentages were 38% for Germany, 0.5% for Greece, 0% for Italy and Spain, 24.8% for Lithuania, 2.3% for Portugal and 63.9% for Sweden.

7. This pertains to such issues as semantic equivalence in the meaning of words as well as idiomatic equivalence. For more details see translation protocol (http://www.abuel.org/). However, as most of the instruments used existed in the languages of the participating countries no major cultural adaptations were needed.

8. Participants were informed before the interview and at the start of the interview, and could at any moment during the interview stop it. Self-responders were also informed before and if they changed their mind they did not need to send back the questionnaire.

9. Germany, Ethikkommission des Landes Baden-Wuerttenberg; Italy, Bioethics Advisory Committee of National Institute of Health and Science on Ageing, INRCA; Lithuania, the Lithuanian State Data Protection Inspectorate and the Kaunas Regional Bioethics Committee; Portugal, Comité de Ética do Hospital de João; Spain, Comité de Etica en Investigación de la Universidad de Granada; Sweden, Regional Ethical Committee at Karolinska Institutet.

10. The exact quantities of used alcohol were not possible to calculate accurately. However, for instance, having six drinks daily corresponds approximately to 60 g of alcohol (six units of 10 g each). On a weekly basis that would amount to 420 g of alcohol (42 units of 10 g each). This quantity surpasses by far what is ‘recommended’ safe limits of alcohol (e.g. The Royal Colleges of Physicians, Psychiatrists and General Practitioners).

11. Detailed data not shown here.

12. Detailed data not shown here.

13. Detailed data not shown here.