Adolescents from risk families as regards alcohol consumption drink more than their peers from non-risk families. They think that alcohol stimulates their social behaviour.

Shirley Hill and her fellow workers suspect, on the basis of previous research, that the views of parents on the effect of alcohol directly influences the expectation patterns of their children. They wanted to put the hypothesis to the test by means of research.
The researchers recruited 69 young persons, with two brothers who were addicted to alcohol. 46 households with low apparent risk but with the same structural characteristics as the high-risk families were selected as a control. As expected, high-risk adolescents drank more frequently and greater quantities of alcohol, with more serious consequences such as drunkenness and ill health.
In early adolescence, the risk youths were more inclined than the non-risk youths to expect an improvement of their social interaction. However, that difference disappeared by the age of sixteen. Of the two groups of youths, the expectation was greater among those who had already started drinking than it was among the non-drinkers. It was also noted that the youths with higher expectations as regards their social functioning drank more often and in larger amounts, and were more prone to the negative physical and social consequences.
High-risk adolescents began drinking approximately 15 months earlier than the low-risk control group. In general, younger adolescents took up drinking at a younger age according to how much they expected from alcohol with regard to improved social relations and relaxation through the drinking of alcohol. There appeared to be a connection between the attitudes of parents and children regarding the consequences of alcohol. Parents and children in high-risk families had similar views, in contrast to the relation between parents and children in the low-risk families, where the adolescents tended to have a more positive attitude towards the consumption of alcohol than their parents.
The researchers concluded that the differences in expectations between the risk two groups may be caused by the way in which the parents convey their views to their children. They argue the case in favour of a campaign to change attitudes about the consequences of alcohol (especially regarding the influence on social behaviour), which could even lead to better prevention in the high-risk group.

  |terug|mail|print|top|