Ways of regulating one's drinking: a factor analysis of a Finnish general population sample

This article studies the various ways of regulating drinking used by Finns and how these vary between men and women, and in different groups of age, educational attainment and alcohol consumption.

The data consist of a cross-section of survey data collected in Finland in 2005. The response rate was 53%. The analysis was restricted to respondents who had used alcohol in the last 12 months and were between 15 and 71 years of age (n = 1013). A factor analysis was performed to discover underlying dimensions in the ways of regulation. In order to study the relationship between the ways of regulation and drinking habits, correlations and regression analyses were used.

The ways of regulating one's drinking extracted to three factors which were named self-control, social control and external control. Self-control was the most common way of regulation. Stronger reliance on external control of drinking increased the probability of heavy alcohol use.

These survey results indicate that external control of drinking, for example the restriction of availability of alcohol, could have a greater impact on heavy drinking than on moderate drinking.