[Alcohol consumption among students of the autonomous community of Extremadura]

To find the number of drinkers, the relationship of their environment to the habit and attitudes to alcohol of Estremaduran children in the eighth year of EGB/second of ESO.

Crossover descriptive study of a representative sample of the students in these school years.

All the schools in our autonomous community.

996 students belonging to various educational establishments.

We used a self-filled questionnaire with questions on the alcohol consumption of those being surveyed and their parents, siblings, friends and teachers. Other variables such as age, sex, parents' educational qualifications and other questions touching on the attitude to alcohol were included too. The subjects were 13-14 years old (54% boys and 46% girls). 15.50% were habitual drinkers and 54.43% occasional drinkers, with the number of boys predominating in the two groups (72.72 against 27.27% and 54.07 against 45.93%, respectively). Consumption was clearly higher in the father, siblings and friends of habitual drinkers (p < 0.05, p < 0.001 and p < 0.001, respectively). Parents of non-drinkers had higher educational qualifications. Habitual drinkers, and to a lesser degree occasional drinkers, displayed favourable attitudes to consumption and a positive association with alcohol consumption.

Given their age, the percentage of drinkers is worrying and is linked to the presence of the habit in their closest social environment. The positive attitudes to alcohol consumption of our school students justify the introduction of prevention programmes.