Age of Onset, Motives and Amount of Alcohol Consumed in the Determination of Consequences in College Binge Drinkers

Abstract

Drinking onset, motives and alcohol use in the prediction of alcohol-related problems in undergraduate binge drinkers. The clinical and social implications derived from binge drinking (BD) in university students cause the need to analyze the factors which contribute to its appearance. This research assesses the influence of the amount of alcohol consumed, drinking onset and the motives associated with this behaviour in the presence of a greater or least number of psychological consequences. 312 first year university students at Valencia University performing BD completed the IECI instrument (Cortés et al., 2012): self report about consumption, associated motives to their consumption and the psychosocial consequences. Results are confirmed by previous research. Both sexes double the grams of alcohol which define a BD. Differences appear in the expected outcome depending on the sex as well as the age at which they drinking onset and the number of experienced consequences. The hierarchical regression analysis shows the importance of the drinking onset and the motives, above the quantity of consumed grams, in order to report the psychosocial impairment generated by the intake. This supports the need to comply with the combination of variables in the explanation and subsequent intervention to alleviate the consequences of the BD.