Alcohol use among university students: Considering a positive deviance approach

Abstract

Harmful alcohol consumption among university students continues to be a significant issue. This study examined whether variables identified in the positive deviance literature would predict responsible alcohol consumption among university students. Surveyed students were categorized into three groups: abstainers, responsible drinkers and binge drinkers. Multinomial logistic regression modelling was significant (χ² = 274.49, degrees of freedom = 24, p < .001), with several variables predicting group membership. While the model classification accuracy rate (i.e. 71.2%) exceeded the proportional by chance accuracy rate (i.e. 38.4%), providing further support for the model, the model itself best predicted binge drinker membership over the other two groups.

Keywords

alcohol binge drinking drinking behaviour positive deviance students

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Allison

(2001) Missing Data. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

American College Health Association (2008) American College Health Association-National College health Assessment: Memorial University of Newfoundland Executive Summary Spring 2008. Baltimore, MD: American College Health Association.

Arbour-Nicitopoulos

Kwan

Lowe

. (2010) Social norms of alcohol, smoking, marijuana use within a Canadian university setting. Journal of American College Health 59: 191–196.

Babalola

Ouedraogo

Vondrasek

(2007) Motivation for late sexual debut in Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso. Journal of HIV/AIDS Prevention in Children and Youth 7: 65–87.

Borooah

(ed.) (2002) Logit and Probit: Ordered and Multinomial Models (No. 138). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Collins

Lapp

(1992) The Temptation and Restraint Inventory for measuring drinking restraint. British Journal of Addiction 87: 625–633.

Collins

Parks

Marlatt

(1985) Social determinants of alcohol consumption: The effects of social interaction and model status on the self-administration of alcohol. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 53: 189–200.

Conroy

de Visser

(2015) The importance of authenticity for student non-drinkers: An interpretative phenomenological analysis. Journal of Health Psychology 20(11): 1483-1493.

Dowdall

(2009) College Drinking: Reforming a Social Problem. London: Praeger.

10.

Dura

Singhal

(2009) Will Ramon finish sixth grade? Positive deviance for student retention in Rural Argentina. Positive Deviance Wisdom Series, no. 2, pp. 1–8. Available at: www.positivedeviance.org/pdf/wisdom%20series/PDArgentina07112010.pdf (accessed 3 November 2010).

11.

Epler

Sher

Piasecki

(2009) Reasons for abstaining or limiting drinking: A developmental perspective psychology of addictive behaviors. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors 23: 428–442.

12.

Fowles

Hendricks

Walker

(2005) Identifying healthy eating strategies in low-income pregnant women: Applying a positive deviance model. Health Care for Women International 26: 807–820.

13.

French

Cooke

(2012) Using the theory of planned behaviour to understand binge drinking: The importance of beliefs for developing interventions. British Journal of Health Psychology 17: 1–17.

14.

Gagnon

Tessier

Côté

. (2012) Psychosocial factors and beliefs related to intention to not binge drink among young adults. Alcohol and Alcoholism 47: 525–532.

15.

Gonzalez

(1990) The college drinking attitude Scale: A tool for alcohol education program assessment. The International Journal of the Addictions 25: 121–131.

16.

Greenfield

Guydish

Temple

(1989) Reasons students give for limiting drinking: A factor analysis with implications for research and practice. Journal of Studies on Alcohol 50: 108–115.

17.

Heckert

(2004) Using an integrated typology of deviance to expand Merton’s anomie theory. Criminal Justice Studies 17: 75–90.

18.

Marsh

Schroeder

Dearden

. (2004) The power of positive deviance. British Medical Journal 329: 1177–1179.

19.

National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (2002) What peer educators and resident advisors (RAs) need to know about college drinking. Available at: www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/NIAAACollegeMaterials/peerBrochure.aspx (accessed 21 October 2009).

20.

Neighbors

Dillard

Lewis

. (2006) Normative misperceptions and temporal precedence of perceived norms and drinking. Journal of Studies of Alcohol 67: 290–299.

21.

Oei

TPS

Hasking

Young

(2005) Drinking Refusal Self Efficacy Questionnaire-Revised (DRSEQ-R): A new factor structure with confirmatory factor analysis. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 78: 297–307.

22.

Paradis

Demers

Picard

(2010) Alcohol consumption: A different kind of Canadian mosaic. Canadian Journal of Public Health 10: 275–280.

23.

Slicker

(1997) University students’ reasons for not drinking: Relationship to alcohol consumption level. Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education 42: 83–102.

24.

Spreitzer

Sonenshein

(2004) Toward the construct definition of positive deviance. American Behavioral Scientist 47: 828–847.

25.

Statistic Canada (2013) Public postsecondary enrolments and graduates, 2010/2011. Available at: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/130-123/dq130123a-eng.htm (accessed 28 September 2013).

26.

Stritzke

Butt

(2001) Motives for not drinking alcohol among Australian adolescents: Development and initial validation of a five-factor scale. Addictive Behaviours 26: 633–649.

27.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2006) Results from the 2005 national survey on drug use and health: National findings (DHHS Publication no. SMA 06-4194). Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

28.

Wechsler

Lee

Kuo

. (2002) Trends in college binge drinking during a period of increased prevention efforts: Findings from 4 Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study Surveys: 1993-2001. Journal of American College Health 50: 203–217.

29.

Wolfzorn

Heckert

(2006) Positive deviance and social bond theory. Free Inquiry in Creative Sociology 34: 107–121.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.12 MB