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

Abstract

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.

Influence of Social, Economic and Family Factors on Alcohol Consumption: A Systematic Review

“…McCartney et al (2016) found that the changes in income, social, and demographic factors has affected the rate of death caused by alcohol consumption. Social factor also were the predictors of alcohol consumption in the study of Mehanović et al (2020) in Slovenia where the findings indicate that parent alcohol consumption, low monitoring, peer, belief, and refusal skills are important factors for alcohol consumption.…”

“…Social factors have an important effect on alcohol consumption. (Ajan & Hanafiah Juni, 2016;Beard et al, 2019;Collins, 2016;Huckle et al, 2018;Juliana Gabrielle et al, 2016;Mehanović et al, 2020;Moan & Halkjelsvik, 2020;Sadler et al, 2017;Stafström & Agardh, 2013;Stapinski et al, 2016;Thern & Landberg, 2020) Socioeconomic factors…”

The potential adverse effects of minors' exposure to alcohol‐related stimuli via licenced venues: A narrative review

“…The 28 articles identified on parental alcohol intake only (i.e., not specifying children's observation of alcohol use) linked greater frequency and/or volume of consumption to negative alcohol‐related outcomes for their children [46, 79, 80, 83–107]. This effect was observed across numerous countries and cultural contexts, including Australia [87], Brazil [85, 90], Chile [86], China [105], Germany [97], Ireland [98], Japan [88], Mexico [107], Slovenia [96], Spain [101], Taiwan [79], the United Kingdom [91, 93, 94] and the United States [89, 92].…”

“…The 28 articles identified on parental alcohol intake only (i.e., not specifying children's observation of alcohol use) linked greater frequency and/or volume of consumption to negative alcohol‐related outcomes for their children [46, 79, 80, 83–107]. This effect was observed across numerous countries and cultural contexts, including Australia [87], Brazil [85, 90], Chile [86], China [105], Germany [97], Ireland [98], Japan [88], Mexico [107], Slovenia [96], Spain [101], Taiwan [79], the United Kingdom [91, 93, 94] and the United States [89, 92]. Thirteen of the identified studies were longitudinal and found that parental alcohol use is associated with children subsequently engaging in underage alcohol consumption, suggesting a causal link between these two outcomes [79, 84, 87, 90–94, 97, 99, 101, 103, 104].…”

“…These studies were limited by a reliance on retrospective recollection of alcohol consumption for both minors and their parents [80, 81, 87, 93, 94, 97, 102, 107, 108]. Some studies were further limited by requiring children to report on both their own and their parents' alcohol use [86, 88–90, 96–98, 101]. These methods for assessing alcohol‐consumption could be liable to recollection biases, potentially affecting the validity of the results.…”