2011 年 19 巻 2 号 p. 135-144
Objectives: To analyse the drinking patterns of secondary school students and the relationship between drinking patterns, age at drinking onset, gender, personality traits and family drinking habits.
Methods: A descriptive, correlational study was performed with a randomly selected sample of 103 students in10th, 11th and 12th grades, aged 15-20, in the Centre Region of Portugal. The Drinking Habits Questionnaire and the Portuguese version of the Eysenck Personality Inventory were used to collect data. Data collection was carried out by self-administered questionnaire in the first week of March 2008.
Results: On average, boys started drinking alcohol earlier (13.1years) than did girls (14.1years), but the current drinking pattern was identical across genders. Of 103 students, 85.4% were drinkers and 14.6% had never had alcohol. Of those who had already started to drink (n=88), 79.5% were occasional or light drinkers, particularly on weekends and with beer as the primary alcohol of choice. Additionally, 82.0% of current drinkers also drank spirits on weekends, 52.3% had been intoxicated at least once, and the mean age of first intoxication was around 16 years. Adolescent drinking pattern was positively associated with family drinking pattern (rs=0.31; p<0.001) and with extroversion (rs=0.24; p=0.013).
Conclusion: Both boys and girls attending secondary school in the Centre Region of Portugal tend to drink moderately and occasionally, especially on weekends. About half of the students have been intoxicated at least once. Drinking pattern is weakly correlated with family consumption pattern and with extroversion.
