Alcohol use variability in a community-based sample of nonstudent emerging adult heavy drinkers

ABSTRACT

Background: While nonstudent emerging adults are at elevated risk for experiencing alcohol-related problems, there remains a paucity of research devoted specifically to addressing drinking in this group. Objectives: The present study sought to offer unique insights into nonstudent drinking by examining drinking variability across 30 days using a retrospective diary method. Specific aims were to: (1) compare within- and between-person variability in alcohol use across 30 days, and (2) determine the extent to which central social-cognitive between-person factors (i.e., social expectancies, perceived drinking norms, social drinking motivations) predict between-person alcohol use as well as within-person variability in drinking. Methods: Participants were 195 (65.1% men) nonstudent emerging adults recruited from the community with a mean age of 21.9 (SD = 2.1) years. Results: Findings showed that a substantial portion of variation in daily alcohol consumption was attributable to the within-person (83%) rather than between-person (17.2%) level. Social expectancies, perceived drinking norms, and social motives were found to influence variability in daily alcohol consumption. Conclusion: Our findings contribute to knowledge that could guide efforts to design and tailor intervention strategies to minimize the harms experienced by an understudied and at-risk population of drinkers.

KEYWORDS:

• Alcohol
• daily drinking
• nonstudents
• noncollege
• expectancies
• motives
• norms

Funding

Cathy Lau-Barraco is supported by a Career Development Award (K01-AA018383) from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Ashley N. Linden-Carmichael is supported by the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (F31-AA023118) from the NIAAA. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and the NIAAA had no other role other than financial support.

Notes

¹ To revert back to the original metric, readers can exponentiate the listed results, raising to the base e. For example, the grand mean is the log of 0.63, so in the original metric it is exp(0.63) = 1.88 drinks. The full re-expressed equation in the raw metric is E[Drinks_ti] = exp(β₀₀ + β₀₁*(Social Expectancies_i) + β₀₂*(Social Motives_i) + β₀₃*(Norms_i) + β₀₄*(AUDIT_i)).

Additional information

Funding

Cathy Lau-Barraco is supported by a Career Development Award (K01-AA018383) from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Ashley N. Linden-Carmichael is supported by the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (F31-AA023118) from the NIAAA. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and the NIAAA had no other role other than financial support.