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Abstract
Aims: This article presents analyses of norms and behaviour concerning drinking before, during and after work hours among US bar-restaurant chain employees, with a focus on hangovers at work and their correlates.
Methods: A mixed-method approach combined qualitative analysis of 64 face-to-face interviews held with randomly chosen service, managerial and kitchen staff and quantitative analyses (including multivariable linear regression and bivariate analyses) of data drawn from 1286 completed telephone surveys (response rate 68%) with 18–29-year-old employees.
Results: Relatively few survey respondents reported past-year drinking in the hour prior to work (5%) or during work hours (2.7%), but extensive drinking in non-work hours (85.5%), and 36.5% of respondents reported coming to work with a hangover at least once. Correlates of hangover at work were past-year intoxication and holding positive norms for hangovers. These findings were elaborated by interview data describing heavy drinking after work at nearby bars, restaurants and employee homes.
Conclusions: The findings illustrated that employee drinking during work hours was not normative. However, study results portrayed widely shared norms for heavy drinking outside of work, with hangovers and related harms appearing as the primary work time repercussions of after-work alcohol consumption.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by NIAAA Grant #R01-AA015423 (Genevieve M. Ames, PI; Roland S. Moore, Co-PI). We are thankful for the assistance provided by the restaurant-bar chain management and staff, who have requested not to be named in our reports. We also thank Michael Frone for his help in developing the survey instrument.
Declaration of interest
The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this paper; each author has contributed to the writing of the paper.