Exploring cultural differences in alcohol consumption in young people across Europe

Abstract

Aims: To compare the prevalence of alcohol-related problems in different European countries. To evaluate young people’s perceptions of alcohol control policies in different European countries. To confirm the factor structure of the Drinking Motives Questionnaire-Revised across European countries. To test the effectiveness of psychological interventions to reduce problematic alcohol consumption. Rationale: While it is well known that European countries have drinking cultures that vary considerable (i.e., Northern European populations tend to drink less frequently, but more heavily, than Southern European populations) little research has attempted to systematically measure psychological aspects of alcohol consumption across countries to try and understand these differences. To address this limitation, this symposium focuses on four key aspects of young people’s alcohol consumption (i) prevalence of alcohol-related problems, (ii) perceptions of alcohol control policies, (iii) validity of measurement scales and (iv) psychological interventions to reduce hazardous alcohol consumption. Summary: Petrilli et al. compared patterns of alcohol consumption in seven European countries. Problematic consumption was more common in Northern European countries relative to Central and Southern European countries. De Visser et al. examined perceived effectiveness of alcohol control strategies in different European countries. Across countries, university students rated policies that would not affect them (alcohol dependence treatment centres) as more effective than those that would affect them (raising the legal drinking age). Fernandes-Jesus et al. assessed the factor structure of Cooper’s (1994) Drinking Motives Questionnaire-Revised. They found few differences between respondents in different countries; removing one item, which was problematic in all countries, resulted in a valid measure. Finally, Norman and Wrona tested self-affirmation with implementation intentions as psychological interventions to reduce hazardous alcohol consumption. Participants who formed implementation intentions engaged in less hazardous consumption, but, there was no impact of self-affirmation and no benefit to combining implementation intentions with self-affirmation.