Correlates of problem drinking among young Japanese women: personality and early experiences

Problem drinking patterns were measured by the CAGE questionnaire among 90 currently drinking young Japanese women who were recently recruited by a Japanese company. Problem drinking was examined in terms of personality (temperament and character as defined by Cloninger) and early life experiences (perceived parental behavior, parental abusive behavior, being bullied at school, and positive and negative life events experienced before the age of 16). Multiple regression analysis revealed that problem drinking could be predicted by a set of personality scores, early death of a close friend, and the interaction of the death of a close friend and low explorative excitability (novelty-seeking component 1). This suggests that problem drinking in young women is partly determined by both personality and negative life events during childhood.