Drinking Motives and Drinking-Related Problems among Korean High School Students

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate drinking motives and the drinking-related problems of Korean high school students at a city in Jeonbuk province. Methods: There were 657 students from two academic and two vocational high schools at J city in Jeonbuk province. The sample was collected using a stratified sampling method and the data was collected from June 30th to July 16th 2003. The study instrument used to examine drinking motive was a 20-item summated scale (Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ = .95) and for drinking-related problems was an 18 item summated scale (Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ = .91). The data was analyzed using SPSS/PC+ by percentage, x2-test, t-test and correlations. Results: 1. Drinking experience: Among the high school students, 74.3% of them had drinking episodes. Female students started drinking later (x2 = 12.857, p = .002) and had more drinking friends (x2 = 7.785, p = .020) than males. Vocational school students drank more frequently (x2 = 32.138, p = .001), had more heavy drinking episodes (x2 = 40.370, p = .001). 2. Drinking motives & Drinking-related problems: The mean score of drinking motives was $31.2{\pm}11.12$ out of 80 and that of drinking-related problems was $21.8{\pm}5.85$ out of 72 points. Neither score were stronger was significantly different according to gender and grade. On the other hand, both drinking motives (t = -4.077, p = .001) and drinking-related problems (t = -3.423, p = .001) were stronger in vocational school students than in academic school students. The correlation between drinking-related characteristics and problems were weak (from r = .286 to r = .520) but the correlation within the subcategories of drinking motives was high such as between enhancement and coping (r = .822) and enhancement and social motives (r = .822). Conclusion: The majority of Korean high school students start to drink during their junior high school days. Drinking motives and drinking-related problems were not serious but the drinking motives and the drinking-related problems are stronger among vocational school students. As a result, school-based health education and counseling programs should focus on solving drinking motives than on drinking-related problems.

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