Drinking motives, alcohol consumption, and alcohol-related consequences among Vietnamese medical students

Introduction: Alcohol use among medical students not only causes a lot of problems for themselves but also impacts on other people including their families, friends, and even patients. A high prevalence of alcohol use and alcohol-related consequences among medical students were reported in Vietnam and in many countries. Drinking motives are the most proximal factors to alcohol consumption and were widely suggested for alcohol-related harm prevention among adolescents and young adults. However, little research was conducted to examine drinking motives and its related factors. This study aimed to explore the prevalence of alcohol use, alcohol-related consequences, and drinking motives; and to identify the relationships between drinking motives and alcohol use as well as alcohol-related consequences in Vietnamese medical students.
Methods: This study was a cross-sectional study conducted at Thai Nguyen University of Medicine and Pharmacy. A multi-stage-stratum-clustered sampling was used to recruit the sample. Nine hundred and eighty-two medical students from first to fifth academic year were recruited in 2014. Data was collected by using a self-administered questionnaire that included three sections: demographic information, The Student Alcohol Questionnaire (SAQ), and Drinking Motive Questionnaire Revise (DMQR). Chi-square and t-test were applied to compare the differences of alcohol consumption among different characteristics of participants. Multiple logistic regression was used to find the predictors of alcohol consumption above the recommended limit and alcohol-related consequences.
Results: The average alcohol consumption of 895 participants was 10.3 standard drinks per week (± 21.2). Of those students, 251 (28.1%) students consumed above the recommended limit (≥ 14 standard drinks per week for male, ≥ 7 standard drinks per week for female) according to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010. In terms of alcohol-related consequences, 32.4% of 895 students experienced at least one alcohol-related consequence during two months prior to the survey and 68.8% students experienced at least one alcohol-related consequence during one year before the survey. The consequences were physical and mental health problems (65.4%), driven after drinking (27%), violent behaviors (22.6%), academic performance (15.4%), and troubles with laws (4.1%).
For drinking motives, social motive was the most frequent (87.6%), followed by conformity motive (47.2%), coping motive (33.5%), and enhancement motive (20.2%).
Results from multivariate logistic regression shows that gender, major, grade, grade point average (GPA), part-time job, smoking, peer pressure, coping motive, and enhancement motives were predictors of consuming alcohol above the recommended limit. Gender, peer pressure for drinking, alcohol quantity, and four drinking motives were predictors of alcohol-related consequences.
Conclusion: The findings of the study suggest that alcohol use in Vietnamese medical students was a serious problem, especially among students who were male, had medium and bad GPA, had part-time job, smoked, had peer pressure for drinking, had coping motive, and had enhancement motive. Appropriate strategies for reducing alcohol misuse among medical students should be developed in the future.