Socio-demographic, behavioral, and mental health and wellbeing correlates of university student binge drinking: does frequency matter? (original) (raw)
2016, Mental Health and Addiction Research
Objectives: To assess whether the relationships between binge drinking and various socio-demographic, behavioral, attitudinal, mental health and wellbeing correlates differ according to frequency of binge drinking. Methods: This study (n = 507) used survey data collected from a convenience sample of undergraduate students at a mid-western urban Canadian university. Ordinal logistic regression was conducted with frequency of binge drinking as the outcome variable. Results: Binge drinking frequency was positively associated with impulsivity, negative alcohol-related consequences, and life satisfaction and negatively associated with religiosity. "Frequent" binge drinkers (14.8%) were 2.7 times more likely to have smoked cigarettes, 1.5 times more likely to have used other drugs, 1.8 times more likely to have engaged in "risky" sex, and to have had a negative gambling-related experience than "occasional" binge drinkers (57.8%), who were, in turn, proportionally more likely to have reported these behaviors and/or experiences than non-binge drinkers (28%). Conclusion: Although there were a number of correlates that were related to frequency of binge drinking as predicted, the expected relationships between mental health and wellbeing and binge drinking frequency were not evident. Future research should seek to assess to what extent this is due to methodological issues and to what extent it is due the particularities of university drinking culture that promotes binge drinking as normative and adaptive, engendering higher tolerance for what constitutes problematic alcohol use, and the implications of this for alcohol education and treatment on campus.
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