Binge Drinking Behaviour Essay
Alcohol & Alcoholism Vol. 37, No. 2, pp. 109–120, 2002
REVIEW
REPORTED LEVELS OF ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION AND BINGE DRINKING WITHIN
THE UK UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT POPULATION OVER THE LAST 25 YEARS
JAN S. GILL
Department of Occupational Therapy and Art Therapy, Queen Margaret University College, Leith, Edinburgh EH6 8HX, UK
(Received 4 July 2001; in revised form 24 August 2001; accepted 28 September 2001)
Abstract — Results of a literature review of 18 studies investigating the drinking behaviour of undergraduate students at UK universities over a period of 25 years are presented. While comparison between studies is complicated by inconsistencies in the terms employed to describe drinking behaviour, it is concluded that significant numbers of both male …show more content…
The lowest values for both sexes were recorded by Webb et al. (1998) who studied seven institutions, but as many as 42.6% of males and 36.4% of females had been debilitated by alcohol one to five times in the last 6 months. Two studies (Pickard et al., 2000;
Underwood and Fox, 2000) reported higher levels of binge drinking in females than males.
In 1998, for the first time the GHS in the UK (Bridgwood et al., 2000) investigated daily alcohol consumption. Within the 16–24-year age group (n = 698), 37% of men reported drinking ≥8 units on 1 day in the last week. For women, the corresponding value for drinking ≥6 units was 23% (n = 809).
While the values reported by the student research are clearly variable (particularly for female students), three groups of authors, Norman et al. (1998), Pickard et al. (2000) and
Underwood and Fox (2000), reported values for both genders in excess of those in the GHS survey which used less demanding criteria to define binge drinking. As with ‘sensible drinking’, the UK student population may be binge drinking more often than their peers in the general population. A
REVIEW
REPORTED LEVELS OF ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION AND BINGE DRINKING WITHIN
THE UK UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT POPULATION OVER THE LAST 25 YEARS
JAN S. GILL
Department of Occupational Therapy and Art Therapy, Queen Margaret University College, Leith, Edinburgh EH6 8HX, UK
(Received 4 July 2001; in revised form 24 August 2001; accepted 28 September 2001)
Abstract — Results of a literature review of 18 studies investigating the drinking behaviour of undergraduate students at UK universities over a period of 25 years are presented. While comparison between studies is complicated by inconsistencies in the terms employed to describe drinking behaviour, it is concluded that significant numbers of both male …show more content…
The lowest values for both sexes were recorded by Webb et al. (1998) who studied seven institutions, but as many as 42.6% of males and 36.4% of females had been debilitated by alcohol one to five times in the last 6 months. Two studies (Pickard et al., 2000;
Underwood and Fox, 2000) reported higher levels of binge drinking in females than males.
In 1998, for the first time the GHS in the UK (Bridgwood et al., 2000) investigated daily alcohol consumption. Within the 16–24-year age group (n = 698), 37% of men reported drinking ≥8 units on 1 day in the last week. For women, the corresponding value for drinking ≥6 units was 23% (n = 809).
While the values reported by the student research are clearly variable (particularly for female students), three groups of authors, Norman et al. (1998), Pickard et al. (2000) and
Underwood and Fox (2000), reported values for both genders in excess of those in the GHS survey which used less demanding criteria to define binge drinking. As with ‘sensible drinking’, the UK student population may be binge drinking more often than their peers in the general population. A