Substance use and emotional state in university students

Abstract

Alcohol use in university students is a common phenomenon with studies suggesting that binge drinking is a feature with more than one-half of the students. Significant comorbid factors are associated with alcohol abuse including emotional distress, mental illness and forensic difficulties. The current study surveyed 203 tertiary students to identify the degree to which emotional distress was associated with alcohol use. The design used a general dependency measure (The Leeds Dependency Questionnaire) to partial out any spurious correlation that might exist between measures of emotional distress, derived from the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised (SCL-90R), and alcohol use (the AUDIT). Results found that even after controlling for age and general dependency, emotional factors significantly predicted AUDIT scores, even in a supposedly healthy group of people. The results are discussed in relation to the direction of harm minimization policies.