Binge drinking among undergraduate students: An examination of risk factors using a psychosocial model.

Abstract

Binge drinking with its numerous negative consequences is considered the largest public health problem on American college campuses because it is the leading cause of injury and death among undergraduates. The lack of adequate explanatory frameworks for understanding how risk factors for binge drinking operate within individual undergraduate students represents an important shortcoming in higher education. The main purpose of this study was to develop and test a new psychosocial framework for examining risk factors and exploring gender differences. An internet-based approach was used to administer a survey questionnaire to a random sample of 2,041 University of Michigan undergraduate students. A variable-centered approach was used to assess the predictive validity of the psychosocial model by regressing risk factors with the frequency of binge drinking behavior. A drinking categorical approach was used to examine risk factors as predictors of three distinct categories of drinking behaviors. Gender differences were examined by testing for gender interactions. As is true in many institutions of higher education, binge drinking and its consequences is a serious problem at Michigan. Nationally, 44% of undergraduate students average at least one binge drinking episode per two weeks, compared to 45% of students at Michigan. Undergraduate students at Michigan who were male, were heavy alcohol users prior to coming to college, drank to get drunk, used other drugs, and engaged in problem behaviors were all significantly more likely to binge drink. There were several important gender differences found with respect to individual risk factors. For example, living arrangements tended to be stronger risk factors for men while problem behaviors were stronger for women. This study lends support that while undergraduate students do not differ greatly from adolescents and non-college attending young adults with respect to many of the risk factors for binge drinking, there are distinct factors for the college student population. Therefore, developing a college-specific framework for understanding how risk factors operate among college students represents an important step for enhancing current prevention and intervention efforts. The new psychosocial framework developed for this study explained more variance in binge drinking behavior than previous conceptual models.