Hazardous alcohol use and cultural adjustment among U.S. college students abroad in Italy: Findings and recommendations for study abroad staff and researchers

ABSTRACT

Background: Italy is a top destination for U.S. college students studying abroad. Both international and local Italian media outlets, such as city newspapers, have cited the discordance between Italian cultural norms and U.S. college students' drinking behaviors. Hazardous alcohol consumption abroad, such as binge drinking, can result in individual- (e.g., physical injury) and social- (e.g., promotion of negative stereotypes) level adverse consequences. Methods: We assessed the prevalence of hazardous alcohol use and recent binge drinking in a sample of U.S. college students studying abroad in Italy (n = 111). We evaluated associations among drinking and cultural adjustment and determined which sociocultural factors predicted binge drinking for students abroad. Results: Forty-six percent of students were classified as hazardous drinkers and 63% reported recent binge drinking. Socializing with American peers was a significant predictor for binge drinking abroad. Conclusions: Binge drinking was quite prevalent in our sample of students studying abroad in Italy. Study abroad advisors, instructors, and staff should consider diverse strategies to screen, educate, prevent, and/or intervene on alcohol misuse with their students. These strategies should be personalized to both the student as well as the host culture's norms.

Keywords:

• Acculturation
• alcohol drinking
• binge drinking
• Italy
• students
• young adults

Acknowledgments

Selected results were previously presented as an oral presentation at the 38th annual national conference of Association for Medical Education and Research in Substance Abuse, San Francisco, CA, November 7, 2014. Published abstract from AMERSA conference included in Substance Abuse Journal Supplement (Volume 36, Issue 2, pp. 131–134). We thank the study abroad staff from the 2 institutions with recruitment efforts for this study. We would also like to thank Ada Youk, PhD (Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System/University of Pittsburgh), for reviewing the analytic procedures. Finally, we thank the 2 anonymous peer reviewers for their critical feedback and suggestions.

Author contributions

All 3 authors have significantly contributed to the final manuscript. Both the first and second authors have contributed to the conception and design of the study, collection of data, data analysis, interpretation of the results, and writing of the manuscript. The third author's contribution included assisting with interpreting the results, writing parts of the introduction and discussion sections, and contributing critical revisions to the draft manuscript.

Funding

This work was partially supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Academic Affiliations Advanced Fellowship Program in Addiction Treatment (M. Mitchell), a Career Development Award from the Health Services Research & Development service (CDA 10-014, Principal Investigator [PI]: L. Broyles), and with resources and facilities at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, Pittsburgh, PA. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States government.