Background: Previous studies have indicated that drinking among Japanese adolescents has decreased. However, the average drinking prevalence among them is not sufficiently lowered, and the drinking level remains problematic.
Objectives: The purposes of this study were to clarify the active and passive influential social factors and examine their relative levels of influence in the current drinking behaviors of junior and senior high school students in Japan.
Methods: A total of 5,333 students (3,169 boys, 2,164 girls) from seventh to twelfth grades among five junior high schools (n＝2835) and five senior high schools (n＝2498) in one prefecture of Japan completed an anonymous, self-administered questionnaire. The contents of the questionnaire included the following: 1) the drinking behavior of subjects, their family members (father, mother, and older siblings), and friends (close friends, boy/girlfriend); 2) offers of alcohol as an active social factor (at least one or more offers in the past month); and 3) estimation of peers' and adults' alcohol use and perceived attitudes of parents and friends toward the respondent's drinking as passive social factors. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to examine the association of current drinking (defined as drinking at least once a month) with active and passive social factors among the participants. All variables were entered simultaneously as independent variables. Additionally, the models were adjusted according to school grade, and school type (only senior high school).
Results: The multiple logistic regression analysis revealed the following relationships. Among both junior and senior high school students, there are significant relationships between the participants' current drinking behavior and explicit offers of drinks and perceived favorable attitudes of parents toward the respondent's drinking habit. Among high school students, there was a marked relationship between their drinking behavior and the overestimation of peers' drinking. Among girls, there was a tendency for the perceived attitudes of parents to be the most important influential social factor. Among boys, however, results suggest that drinking behaviors among people around the subjects promoted their drinking.
Conclusion: When developing drinking prevention programs in the future, it is necessary to pay attention not only to active influential social factors such as explicit offers of drinks but also to passive influential social factors such as parents' strict attitudes toward drinking.
