[Motives for occasional and excessive alcohol consumption in Mexican high-school adolescents]

In Mexico, alcohol consumption in adolescents has increased and the reasons why adolescents do that have hardly been studied. Likewise, studies on the possible differences in the reasons for consumption among adolescents who consume alcohol occasionally and excessively are scarce at the international level.

To examine the reasons for consuming alcohol in adolescents, and to study if these differ depending on whether the consumption is occasional or excessive.

The DMQ-R-SF (Drinking Motives Questionnaire Revised-Short-Form) and AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test) scales were administered to Mexican adolescents from 4 schools (one middle-school and 3 high schools) who had ever consumed alcohol.

The sample consisted of 307 adolescents (mean 16.17 ± SD = 1.24), out of which 174 (56.7%) were female. It was observed that the most frequently mentioned reason was social, followed by improvement and coping, with conformity being the least recognized. In the results extracted from the multiple regression analyses, it was observed that alcohol consumption in the total sample is explained by three of the four reasons. However, occasional consumption is explained by the social and improvement reasons, but excessive consumption is only explained by coping with aversive experiences.

These results suggest that it is very useful to detect those adolescents who consume as a way of coping, and offer them adaptive regulation strategies against anxiety and depression.