OBJECTIVE: Alcohol consumption of university students in Metro Manila was determined and compared to other countries in the region and in the West.
METHODS: A survey of students from ten randomly selected public and private universities in Metro Manila was done.
RESULTS: A total of 2,930 students participated, 46.1% from public schools and 58.9% were female. Of the total students, 81.6% had drank an alcoholic drink in their lifetime; and 15.6% drank beer, 22.5% drank wine and 11.4% drank distilled spirits before they were 13 years old. For the past 30 days, 30.2% drank beer, 30.8% distilled spirit and 18.7% wine; 16.9%, 7.4% and 19.7% binged on beer, wine and distilled spirits, respectively; and 29.1% got drunk. Five percent of the students had drank inside their school. Of those who drove any motorized vehicle, 28.9% drove when they had drank and of those who use prohibited drugs, 66.7% mixed the two. Thirty one percent said they tried to quit drinking in the past 12 months and 7.5% admitted they have a drinking problem.
CONCLUSION: Alcohol consumption of Metro Manila students approximates those of other countries. For policy and monitoring purposes, it is recommended that this survey be done regularly with a nationwide scope and compare this with other countries for best practices.

BACKGROUND: It has been suggested that CDT is a potential biological marker in the Western countries to reflect the degree of past alcohol consumption. This study was performed to compare CDT, AST (aspartate transaminase), ALT (alanine transaminase), and GGT (gamma- glutamyl transferase) as a biological marker reflecting drinking amounts in Korean patients. METHODS: The 25 males with moderate drinking(<14 drinks/week) and 26 males with heavy drinking (>21 drinks/week) were studied for the relationships between their weekly drinking amount and the blood levels of CDT, AST, ALT, and GGT. RESULTS: Only CDT was significantly correlated (P=0.001) with weekly drinking amount among heavy drinkers, while both CDT (P=0.029) and GGT (P=0.000) were significantly correlated in moderate drinkers. Stepwise multiple regression revealed that GGT had R2 of 49.1% in moderate drinkers and CDT had R2 of 38.9% in heavy drinkers for the weekly drinking amount. CONCLUSION: The results described above suggested that CDT can be a potential biological marker for the purpose of quantitative monitoring the drinking behavior of heavy drinkers in Korea.
Alcohol Drinking* ; Biomarkers ; Drinking ; Drinking Behavior ; Humans ; Korea ; Male* ; Transferrin*

OBJECTIVES: This survey study was conducted to investigate the effect of smoking on drinking alcohol, depression, anxiety and impulsiveness. METHODS: The survey participants were 925 residents over 20 years of age in Gwanak-gu, Seoul. Subjects were divided into smoking and non-smoking groups, and all completed the Korean Version of the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT-K), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Barret Impulsiveness Scale (BIS) and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) to identify patterns of the alcohol consumption and smoking, and to assess levels of depression, anxiety and impulsiveness. RESULTS: The number of subjects with problem drinking was significantly higher in smokers (n=58, 37.2%) than non-smokers (n=81, 11.1%), and there was also a significant difference between smokers and non-smokers on the BDI. However, there were no significant differences between smokers and non-smokers on either the BIS or the STAI. When smokers with problem drinking (Smk_Alc) and smokers without problem drinking (Smk_non-Alc) were compared, the Smk_Alc subjects were found to have higher BDI and trait anxiety scores than the Smk_non-Alc group. CONCLUSION: The results of this study indicate that smoking is closely related to drinking alcohol and suggests that the more frequently people smoke, the more likely they will drink alcohol due to depression and anxiety. It may therefore important for smokers to control depressive mood, anxiety and impulsivity.
Alcohol Drinking ; Anxiety ; Depression ; Drinking ; Drinking Behavior ; Smoke ; Smoking

PURPOSE: Despite the high drinking rates and the complexity of drinking behaviors in adolescents, insufficient attention has been paid to their drinking patterns. Therefore, we aimed to identify patterns of adolescent drinking behaviors and factors predicting the distinct subgroups of adolescent drinking behaviors.METHODS: We analyzed nationally representative secondary data obtained in 2017. Our final sample included 24,417 Korean adolescents who had consumed at least one glass of alcohol in their lifetime. To investigate patterns of drinking behaviors, we conducted a latent class analysis using nine alcohol-related characteristics, including alcohol consumption levels, solitary drinking, timing of drinking initiation, and negative consequences of drinking. Furthermore, we investigated differences in demographics, mental health status, and characteristics of substance use across the latent classes identified in our study. To do so, we used the PROC LCA with COVARIATES statement in the SAS software.RESULTS: We identified three latent classes of drinking behaviors: current non-drinkers (CND), binge drinkers (BD), and problem drinkers (PD). Compared to the CND class, both BD and PD classes were strongly associated with higher academic year, lower academic performance, higher levels of stress, suicidal ideation, lifetime conventional or electronic cigarette use, and lifetime use of other drugs.CONCLUSION: Health professionals should develop and implement intervention strategies targeting individual subgroups of drinking behaviors to obtain better outcomes. In particular, health professionals should consider different characteristics across subgroups of adolescent drinking behaviors when developing the interventions, such as poor mental health status and other substance use among binge and problem drinkers.
Adolescent ; Alcohol Drinking ; Demography ; Drinking Behavior ; Drinking ; Electronic Cigarettes ; Glass ; Health Occupations ; Humans ; Mental Health ; Republic of Korea ; Suicidal Ideation ; Underage Drinking

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of depression has been steadily increasing. This study aim to identify associations between smoking, drinking and depression in Korean adults. METHODS: The study subjects were 17,871 adults aged 19 or over who participated in the 5th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2010-2012). We performed multiple logistic regression to identify whether smoking and drinking were independently significant variables to depression after adjusting for the confounding variables. RESULTS: The proportion of having any depressive episodes was a total of 13.4% with 9.1% of male and 16.6% of female, respectively. Among all of smoking behaviors, higher cigarette consumption was only associated with depression in men. However, for women ever-smoking (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]=1.63, 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.38-1.92), ex-smoking (aOR=1.38, 95% CI=1.10-1.54), current smoking (aOR=1.89, 95% CI=1.53-2.94) and younger initiation of smoking (aOR=2.34, 95% CI=1.73-3.16) had significantly higher odds for depression. Moreover, and higher cigarette consumption (20 or more per day) showed significantly higher odds ratios for depression both in men (aOR=1.21, 95% CI=1.01-1.54) and women (aOR=2.41, 95% CI=1.32-4.41). For alcoholic drinking behaviors, frequent binge drinking (1 per week: aOR=1.46, 95% CI=1.16-1.85, most everyday: aOR=1.79, 95% CI=1.14-2.80) was an independent risk factor for depressive symptoms in female. CONCLUSIONS: Smoking and drinking behaviors were independently associated with depression especially in female. Smoking and drinking management may benefit depression control as well as health promotion.
Adult* ; Alcohol Drinking ; Alcoholics ; Binge Drinking ; Confounding Factors (Epidemiology) ; Depression* ; Drinking Behavior ; Drinking* ; Female ; Health Promotion ; Humans ; Korea* ; Logistic Models ; Male ; Nutrition Surveys* ; Odds Ratio ; Prevalence ; Risk Factors ; Smoke* ; Smoking* ; Tobacco Products

Objective: Evidence regarding alcohol consumption and cognitive impairment is controversial. Whether cessation of drinking alcohol by non-dependent drinkers alters the risk of cognitive impairment remains unknown. This study prospectively evaluated the potential association between the history of lifetime alcohol cessation and risk of cognitive impairment. Methods: This study included 15,758 participants age 65 years or older, selected from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) that covered 23 provinces in China. Current alcohol use status, duration of alcohol cessation, and alcohol consumption before abstinence were self-reported by participants; cognitive function was evaluated using Mini-mental State Examination (MMSE). Cause-specific hazard models and restricted cubic splines were applied to estimate the effect of alcohol use on cognitive impairment. Results: Among the 15,758 participants, mean (± SD) age was 82.8 years (± 11.9 years), and 7,199 (45.7%) were males. During a mean of 3.9 years of follow-up, 3,404 cases were identified as cognitive impairment. Compared with current drinkers, alcohol cessation of five to nine years [adjusted Conclusion A longer duration of alcohol cessation was associated with a lower risk of cognitive impairment assessed by MMSE. Alcohol cessation is never late for older adults to prevent cognitive impairment.
Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Alcohol Abstinence ; Alcohol Drinking ; China ; Cognition ; Cognitive Dysfunction/epidemiology* ; Female ; Health Behavior ; Humans ; Longitudinal Studies ; Male ; Mental Status and Dementia Tests ; Risk

The purposes of this study are to estimate the stress level of university students, and to verify the relationships between stress level and drinking behavior. A questionnaire survey was administered to 430 university students in the Gangwon area in Korea from November 5 to November 28, 2008, and data from 391 students were used for the final statistical analysis. The most stressful factor was "Worry about academic achievements" (2.86 by Likert-type 4 point scale). The subjects were divided into two groups, a low stress group (< or = 65.0) and a high stress group (> or = 66.0), by the mean value (65.1) and median value (66.0) of the stress levels. The drinking frequency was not different between the two stress groups, but the amount of alcohol consumption was significantly different (P < 0.05). The portion of students reporting drinking "7 glasses or over" was higher in the lower stress group than in the higher stress group. In addition, factor 6, "Lack of learning ability", was negatively correlated with drinking frequency and the amount of alcohol consumption (P < 0.05), and factor 3, "Worry about academic achievements", was negatively correlated with the amount of drinking (P < 0.05). The major motive for drinking was "When overjoyed or there is something to celebrate" (2.62), and the main expected effect of drinking was "Drinking enables me to get together with people and shape my sociability" (2.73). The higher stress group showed significantly higher scores on several items in the categories of motives (P < 0.01), negative experience (P < 0.05), and expected effects (P < 0.05) of drinking than the lower stress group. Our results imply that university students at the lower stress level may drink more from social motives in positive drinking environments, while those at the higher stress level may have more problematic-drinking despite their smaller amount of alcohol consumption.
Alcohol Drinking ; Drinking ; Drinking Behavior ; Eyeglasses ; Glass ; Humans ; Korea ; Learning ; Surveys and Questionnaires

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to determine the general predictive factors of change in drinking behavior and to provide materials for preventing drinking problems during early adulthood through examining genetic and psychosocial factors affecting the change of drinking behavior in college students. METHODS: The subjects were 101 male college students, a part of 534 students who had completed the previous study in 2000. In the present study as a 6-years follow up, we reassessed the drinking pattern and psychosocial variables and compared the results with previous data of the same subjects. To identify factors affecting the current drinking pattern, we used stepwise multiple regression and logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: D allele (ALDH2) was found to reduce the degree of drinking and suppress problematic drinking, and C allele (TPH) had a suppression effect on problematic drinking. Drinking motive had a direct effect on the degree of drinking and problematic drinking. Negative cognitive expectancy had a direct effect on problematic drinking. CONCLUSION: Authors found some factors affecting the change of alcohol drinking behavior in college students and confirmed that there were hierarchies of significance among these factors. These may be applicable as variables for predicting drinking behavior in early adulthood.
Alcohol Drinking ; Alleles ; Drinking Behavior* ; Drinking* ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Logistic Models ; Male* ; Psychology*

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to identify factors affecting problem drinking in male nursing students. METHODS: This study was conducted using a cross-sectional survey. A total 126 male nursing students completed a self-report questionnaire to assess alcohol consumption,motives for drinking, and self-efficacy in drinking refusal self-efficacy. The participants were divided into 2 groups, moderate and problem drinkers. Multivariate analysis was used to identify factors affecting problem drinking in these nursing students. RESULTS: Problem drinkers was found to be related to young age (adjusted OR=0.83, 95% CI [0.71, 0.96], coping motives (adjusted OR=1.19, 95%CI [1.00, 1.42], and drinking refusal self-efficacy (OR=0.96, 95% CI [0.93, 0.99]). CONCLUSION: The findings highlight the important role that coping motives and drinking refusal self-efficacy play in the problems in the drinking behavior of male nursing students
Alcohol Drinking ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; Drinking Behavior ; Drinking* ; Humans ; Male* ; Motivation ; Multivariate Analysis ; Nursing* ; Students, Nursing*

The aim of this article was to evaluate the social meaning of alcohol consumption among Koreans. Drinking is considered a method of nonverbal communication, a useful means of maintaining a sense of community and individuality within a community, and a bridge for gathering during work and leisure time. Since Korean society places such a strong social meaning on drinking behavior, the harmful effects of alcohol can extend beyond individual problems to the bigger social picture. The problems associated with excessive alcohol consumption continue to increase every year. The prevalence of high-risk has increased from 14.9% (2005) to 17.1% (2009) and the rate of drinking and driving accidents has increased from 54.79 per 100,000 person (2005) to 57.86 (2009). In addition, the total expenditure on alcohol-related disease in Korea has increased markedly from 3.2 trillion won in 2005 to 6.1 trillion won in 2009. The government's efforts to reduce alcohol harms have not been as effective as anticipated because there is a strong social dependence on alcohol. Regular alcohol consumption can elicit a strong feeling of dependence that is very difficult to reverse. In addition, the powerful social meaning Koreans associate with drinking contributes to their propensity to develop a deeper psychological and physical dependence on alcohol. A strategy to affect cultural change is desperately needed in order to alter the social meaning of drinking to reduce drinking harms in modern Korean society.
Alcohol Drinking ; Drinking ; Drinking Behavior ; Health Expenditures ; Humans ; Individuality ; Korea ; Leisure Activities ; Nonverbal Communication ; Prevalence