Alcohol Abuse And Physical Activity Profile In Italian Adolescents

Background. Adolescents’ health strictly depends on the behavioural factors that might cluster together in the risky – healthy profile. Several studies demonstrated the positive role of Physical Activity (PA) on psycho-physical young development. Nevertheless some of them showed the possible harms for abuse behaviours, due to the exposure to peer pressure in a recreational setting and performance enhancement achievement. Aims. To describe the alcohol consumption and PA profile in different adolescents’ subgroups. To evaluate the protective role of PA considering individual and environmental determinants. Methods. In 2006, 1,730 Italian students of Abruzzo Region (48% males), filled in two questionnaires, the Eudap Questionnaire on abuse behaviours and the Sport Support Questionnaire on physical activity profile. Three outcome’s measures on alcohol use/misuse has been collected: actually daily drinking, actually at least weekly drinking and almost one time (ALO) to get drunk in the last thirty days. PA profile has been referred to Organized PA (OPA) level and No-Structured PA in the last 7 days (NSPA-7d) level. Therefore, adolescents are classified as “No active”, “Low active” or “High active” in OPA as well as in NSPA-7d. The social influence on alcohol use has been assessed by mean of students’ estimate on friends and siblings behaviours, their opinion on parents’ control, and, finally, their refusal skill. In a cross-sectional design, multiple logistic regression models have been used to estimate odds ratio for psychosocial and PA-level determinants on alcohol outcomes. Results. Mean age of adolescents is 14.5 years (SD 0.7). Alcohol consumption appears higher in males than in females (6.9% vs 1,3% drinks “daily”, p<0.05; 29.3% vs 13.6% drinks “weekly or more”, p<0.05) and higher in 16 years older aged than younger (5.2% vs 3.9% drinks “daily”, n.s.; 28.5 % of vs 20.6% drink “weekly or more”, p<0.05). Alcohol misuse, instead, seems to differ principally for age of misusers: males got drunk a little more than females (14.2% vs 11.6%, n.s.) but 16 years older much more than younger (30.8% vs 11.6%, p<0.05). As regard OPA involvement, males are more active than females: respectively 49.3 % vs 31.9 % are “High-active”. On the contrary, males have been involved in NSPA-7d less than females (27.9% vs 36.0% at “High level”). Crossing data on alcohol behaviours and PA, it seems that OPA involvement exposes females to the risk of alcohol use and misuse, while NSPA-7d involvement is protective for frequent use, both in males than in females. “OPA-High active” girls drink weekly more than “OPA-Low active” and “OPA-No active” (17.4% vs 12.5% and 10.6%, p<0.05) and they got more drunk in the last 30 days (15.6% vs 6.7% and 11.1%, p<0.05). Moreover, boys involved in NSPA-7d at “High level” and at “Low level” drink daily less than boys not-involved at all in NSPA-7d (3.6% vs 8.0%, p<0.05). Nevertheless, in a multivariate analysis, it clearly appears that use and abuse of alcohol is principally due to the psychosocial determinants: the logistic models hide the apparent risk due to the OPA and, on the contrary, they highlight the protective effect of “Low OPA-level” as well as “Low/High NSPA-level”. “Daily drink” seems more probable in students that are males (OR=6.55), have more than half of friends which get drunk (OR=3.02), have siblings which get drunk (OR=4.84) and it seems less probable when parents don’t allow drinking at all (OR=0.27), in subjects that have a good refusal skills (OR=0.39) and when students have been involved in NSPA-7d at Low (OR=0.29) or High (OR=0.21) levels. Females’ “ALO drunkenness” appears more probable in 16 years aged or more (OR=3.22), that have more than half of friends which get drunk (OR=9.22), and it seems less probable in subjects that have a good refusal skills (OR=0.28) and when girls are “OPA-Low active” (OR=0.41), independently of parents’ allowing or siblings’ behaviours. Conclusions. Our study confirm the role of PA in adolescents’ health promotion, for abuse prevention too. Methodological issues concern, first, the PA assessment in the light of different value of OPA and NSPA. Second, the multivariate analyses might consider most of the determinants of behavioural framework in which PA works. The further step should be to define the common intermediate variables, that predict and moderate PA as well as abuse profile, and could mediate preventive interventions.