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Published on: December 14, 2014
Moderate alcohol use and depression in young adults: findings from a national longitudinal study
Mallie J Paschall1, Bridget Freisthler, Robert I Lipton
1Prevention Research Center, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, 1995 University Ave, Suite 450, Berkeley, CA 94704, USA. paschall@pire.org
Objectives:
We examined the association between moderate alcohol use and depressive mood among young adults before and after adjustment for demographic, health, and socioeconomic factors that may act as confounders.
Methods:
We analyzed 2 waves of interview data collected from 13892 young adults who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to compare frequency of depressive symptoms in moderate drinkers with frequency of symptoms in young adults in other alcohol use categories.
Results:
With adjustment for health and socioeconomic factors, frequency of depressive symptoms were similar among moderate drinkers, lifetime and long-term abstainers, and heavy/heavier moderate drinkers but remained significantly higher among heavy drinkers.
Conclusions:
Moderate alcohol use may have no effect on depression in young adults relative to abstinence from alcohol use.
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