Socio-economic differences in factors associated with alcohol use among adolescents in Slovenia: a cross-sectional study

Objectives: This paper aims to investigate the association of parental, friends, and personal factors with the risk of alcohol use in a sample of Slovenian adolescents, and whether these associations differ by socio-economic status of the school area (SES). Methods: The survey involved 2946 students of 44 Slovenian primary schools in the school year 2010/2011. The association between sociodemographic characteristics, parental alcohol use and permissiveness to drink, parental monitoring, perception of friends' alcohol use, beliefs towards alcohol, self-esteem and refusal skills, and the probability of recent alcohol use was evaluated through multiple multilevel logistic regression analysis. Results: Parental alcohol use, parental permissiveness to drink alcohol, low parental monitoring, perception of friends’ alcohol use, positive beliefs towards alcohol use, and low refusal skills were significantly associated with the risk of alcohol use. Parental drinking and permissive attitudes were stronger correlates of alcohol use among adolescents of middle and low SES schools, while friends’ alcohol use and personal factors among adolescents of high SES schools. Conclusions: Alcohol prevention programs should be tailored to school socio-economic environment taking into account friends and personal determinants among high SES, and parental factors among low SES school students

Correlates of alcohol experimentation and drunkenness episodes among secondary-school students in Nigeria

Background: Alcohol is the most used substance among adolescents in Nigeria. While risk factors for alcohol use among adolescents are well documented in Europe and the US, they have received less attention in the literature on African countries. This study aimed to investigate the factors associated with alcohol experimentation and drunkenness episodes in a national sample of Nigerian adolescents. Methods: A total sample of 4,078 secondary-school students participated in the survey during the school year 2015-2016. The survey involved 32 secondary schools of six geopolitical zones (South-South, South-West, South-East, North-Center, North-West, and North-East) and two metropolitan cities (Abuja and Lagos) of Nigeria. Sociodemographic characteristics, parental alcohol use and permissiveness, friends' alcohol use, risk perceptions and beliefs were investigated as correlates of alcohol experimentation and drunkenness episodes through multilevel, mixed-effect logistic regression models. Results: The prevalence of alcohol experimentation was 34.0%, while the prevalence of drunkenness episodes was 13.4%. Results showed that male gender, family structure different from both parents' families, parental and friends' alcohol use, parental permissiveness to drink, low risk perceptions on drinking alcohol, and positive beliefs on consequences of alcohol use were associated with an increased probability of alcohol experimentation and drunkenness episodes. Family affluence and one-parent family structure were related to an increased probability of alcohol experimentation but not of drunkenness episodes. Conclusions: The majority of risk factors analyzed in this study generalize across drinking-behavior outcomes. Since the young population is dominant in Nigeria, alcohol use could become a big public health problem in the near future. High investment in adolescents' well-being by addressing the factors that contribute to drinking behavior might help to reduce the burden of the problem. Evidence-based prevention curriculum addressing knowledge, risk perceptions, beliefs on consequences of alcohol use, and parental behaviors should be implemented as widely and early as possible