Alcohol use, psychological distress, and subjective well-being among young adult university students: A cross-national study between Serbia and Italy

ABSTRACT

Few studies have cross-nationally tested the mediators of the relationship between alcohol use and subjective well-being among university students. This study examined how self-reported psychological distress symptoms mediate the association between alcohol use (drinking frequency and binge-drinking frequency) and subjective well-being among 637 Serbian and 705 Italian university students. Psychological distress mediated the negative relationship between binge-drinking frequency and subjective well-being among Serbians (partial mediation) and Italians (full mediation). Drinking frequency was not associated with psychological distress or subjective well-being. Binge drinking may negatively affect subjective well-being among university students by enhancing symptoms of psychological distress.

KEYWORDS:

• Alcohol
• Italy
• mental health
• Serbia
• structural equation modeling
• well-being

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support received by the ERAWEB (Erasmus Mundus–Western Balkans) joint mobility program (further details can be found on http://erasmus-west ernbalkans.eu/) and the help received from Prof. Cristina Mosso, Department of Psychology, University of Turin, during the submission process of the proposal for the current study to the Ethical Committee of the University of Turin.

Declaration of interest

The author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Additional information

Funding

The authors have no funding to report.