Longitudinal Impact of Life Events on Adolescent Binge Drinking in the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA)

Abstract

Background: Life events experienced during adolescence are associated with risk and resilience to heavy episodic drinking (HED; i.e. binge drinking). The current study builds on prior research using latent class analysis (LCA) to examine heterogeneity in patterns of adolescent life events at baseline to HED over the course of three years (4 timepoints) as part of the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA). Methods: Life event classes were modeled using LCA that characterized NCANDA participants based upon their responses to the Life Events Questionnaire (N = 467, age: M = 14.98, SD = 1.69, 49.7% female). These baseline latent life event classes were then compared to HED at baseline and years 1, 2 and 3 using multinomial logistic regression. Results: At baseline, the LCA characterized four classes of adolescents based on endorsement of life events: negative-relational conflict (n = 65, 13.9%), negative-financial problems (n = 49, 10.5%), low life events (n = 130, 27.8%), and positive life events (n = 223, 47.8%). Life event trajectories differed for the negative life event classes compared to the other two classes, with greater odds of HED in the negative-financial problems class at year 1. Conclusion: The four latent classes derived from the life events of NCANDA youth yielded a characterization of adolescents that could aid in understanding HED over the subsequent three years, suggesting that everyday life events may inform adolescent binge drinking.

Keywords:

• adolescence
• life events
• binge drinking
• heavy episodic drinking
• alcohol
• latent class analysis

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

Reported data was obtained from the multisite National Consortium on Alcohol & Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA) study, which is supported by the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism with co-funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grant numbers: AA021697 (Pfefferbaum and Pohl), AA021695 (Brown and Tapert), AA021692 (Tapert), AA021696 (Colrain and Baker), AA021681 (De Bellis), AA021690 (Clark), and AA021691 (Nagel).