Examining the Factor Structure and Correlates of Motives to Drink Before Attending a Virtual Social Event During COVID-19 Among University Students

Abstract

Background: Many university students pregame or drink before a social event. Pregaming carries some risk due to its link to heavy drinking. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was limited access to many drinking venues (e.g., bars/clubs). Moreover, universities shifted to a virtual format and imposed restrictions on in-person gatherings resulting in the reliance on virtual platforms for class instruction, meetings, and social events. The pandemic facilitated changes in students’ drinking behaviors, stress levels, and how they maintained social contact with others. Thus, it is conceivable that during an academic pandemic year, students may have engaged in the act of drinking before attending a virtual social event. Objectives: In the present study, we examined the factor structures/item loadings of the Pregaming Motives Measure-Virtual (PGMM-V) among students (N = 283; Mage = 21.38; women = 69.3%; White = 45.4%, Hispanic = 40.8%) from seven universities who completed an online questionnaire (Spring/Summer-2021). Items from the original Pregaming Motives Measure (Bachrach et al., 2012) were modified to reflect motives to drink before attending a virtual social event. Results: We found evidence for a 2-factor structure model of the PGMM-V which includes social/enhancement and social ease/stress. Bivariate correlations indicated that social/enhancement and social ease/stress were (a) positively associated with frequency of drinking and alcohol consumption prior to attending virtual social events, and (b) general drinking motives (social/enhancement/coping) that align with these motives. Conclusions: The PGMM-V is a promising instrument that could be used in future research designed to understand students’ pregaming behaviors for virtual social events as the use of such platforms are increasingly relied upon for social engagement.

Keywords:

• Pregaming
• predrinking
• pregaming motives
• alcohol use
• COVID-19

Acknowledgements

Correspondence regarding the statistical analyses of this paper should be addressed to Banan Ramarushton ([email protected]) and Dr. Heidemarie Blumenthal ([email protected]).

The present investigation was completed by the COVID-19 University Research on Education and Sustainability (CURES) research team which includes the following project and/or site collaborators (listed alphabetically): John Bartholomew, University of Texas at Austin; Melissa Bessaha, State University of New York-Stony Brook; Miguel Ángel Cano, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; Linda Castillo, Texas A&M University; Lindsay S. Ham, University of Arkansas; Marissa Hanson, University of Miami; Audrey Harkness, University of Miami; Charles Martinez, University of Texas at Austin; Alan Meca, University of Texas-San Antonio; Minas Michikyan, California State University-Los Angeles; Brandy Piña-Watson, Texas Tech University; Pamela Regan, California State University-Los Angeles; Seth J. Schwartz, University of Texas at Austin; Kaveri Subrahmanyam, University of North Florida; Byron L. Zamboanga, University of Arkansas.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 A potential suppressor effect by social motives may play a role in the model predicting typical drink amount before attending a virtual event.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.