Relevant Individual, Peer, and Parent Factors for the Prevention of Adolescents’ Binge Drinking

Abstract

As prevalence rates for Dutch adolescents’ binge drinking (BD) remain alarmingly high, the need for effective intervention strategies is rising. Therefore, it is important to identify risk factors from various domains that contribute to adolescents’ BD. The current study investigated which factors in the individual (enhancement and coping motives), peer (descriptive and injunctive norms), and parent (alcohol-specific rules and parental monitoring) domain contributed to the BD prevalence among adolescents in a Dutch municipality, as well as the moderating role of gender and frequency of alcohol use. Dutch adolescents (N = 1006) aged 11 to 17 completed an online self-report questionnaire on drinking motives, social norms, (alcohol-specific) parenting practices, alcohol use, and BD. Logistic regression analyses per domain showed that stronger enhancement motives, and positive descriptive and injunctive norms increased the likelihood to engage in BD, while strict alcohol-specific rules decreased the likelihood to engage in BD. Together, only stronger enhancement motives (individual) and more positive injunctive norms (peers) remained significant. These findings have implications for the development of multi-level interventions that are pressed to be needed for complex problems as adolescents’ BD.