Drinking motives and links to alcohol use in 13 European countries (original) (raw)

2014, Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs

The purpose of this study was to test the structure and endorsement of drinking motives and their links to alcohol use among 11- to 19-year-olds from 13 European countries. Confirmatory factor analysis, latent growth curves, and multiple regression models were conducted, based on a sample of 33,813 alcohol-using students from Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Wales who completed the Drinking Motives Questionnaire Revised Short Form (DMQ-R SF). The findings confirmed the hypothesized fourdimensional factor structure. Social motives for drinking were most frequently indicated, followed by enhancement, coping, and conformity motives, in that order, in all age groups in all countries except Finland. This rank order was clearest among older adolescents and those from northern European countries. The results confirmed that, across countries, social motives were strongly positively related to drinking frequen...