Predictors of driving under the influence of alcohol among Spanish adolescents

This paper aims to examine the socio-economic determinants of alcohol-impaired drinking in Spanish adolescents. In particular, we are interested in analysing the impact of the family and school environment. To do it, we used the Spanish Survey on Drug Use in the School Population for the year 2008, carried out by the Spanish Government’s Delegation for the National Plan on Drugs. This survey with 30,183 students between 14 and 18 years of age (M = 15.6; SD = 1.17) constitutes a representative sample of the Spanish student population. Of these, 6.7% reported having driven under the influence of alcohol, this behaviour being more frequent among boys (10.6%) than girls (2.9%). Logistic regressions reveal that informative campaigns at school could significantly reduce the likelihood of alcohol-impaired driving (OR = 0.82), especially among males (OR = 0.73) and among younger students (OR = 0.66). Our results also suggest that although parents’ education has no significant impact, parent’s alcohol abuse increase notably the probability of driving after drinking (OR = 2.22 for mothers and OR = 2.81 for fathers).