Measuring excessive alcohol use in college drinking contexts: the Drinking Context Scale

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Public Health
• Sociology

Background:

• Alcohol abuse risks are linked to contextual factors potentiating heavy drinking and adverse outcomes.
• Contextual factors encompass psychological, interpersonal, and environmental dimensions of alcohol use.
• Few instruments exist to measure excessive drinking within multidimensional contexts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a scale for measuring excessive drinking likelihood across psychological, interpersonal, and situational contexts.
• To address the need for formal instruments in college drinking research.

Main Methods:

• Development and validation of the 23-item Drinking Context Scale (DCS).
• Study involved 197 college students cited for their first drinking rule violation.
• Principal components analysis, varimax rotation, and MANOVA were used for validation.

Main Results:

• Three distinct factors emerged: Convivial drinking, Private Intimate drinking, and Negative Coping.
• These factors explained 61.5% of the variance and showed excellent internal reliabilities.
• Concurrent validity was demonstrated with the Quality Frequency Index (QFI) and a modified Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST).

Conclusions:

• The Drinking Context Scale (DCS) effectively measures excessive drinking across diverse contexts.
• The identified factors (Convivial, Private Intimate, Negative Coping) offer insights into college student drinking behaviors.
• The DCS has implications for further research and intervention strategies in college alcohol use.