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Alcohol consumption, drinker identity, and quality of life among students: why there cannot be one prevention strategy for all

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Abstract

Introduction

The objective for this study was to combine drinking characteristics and two subjective measures, drinker identity and alcohol-related quality of life, i.e., negative impact of alcohol on quality of life, to determine relevant profiles for indicated prevention programs. In particular, we hypothesized that different profiles of students with high level of alcohol consumption exist when exploring subjectivity.

Methods

We performed an online survey among 16,930 students. We collected sociodemographics and environmental data, including alcohol-related quality of life, drinker identity, and drinking characteristics. We performed a hierarchical clustering on principal components. We described all variables in each cluster and explored between clusters differences by Kruskal–Wallis tests.

Results

We identified five clusters as regarding drinker identity, drinking characteristics, and alcohol-related quality of life. Among these five clusters, three clusters presented high drinking characteristics. A very vulnerable cluster showed high level of alcohol consumption, impact on quality of life and on academic results, and strong drinker identity. An egodystonic cluster showed high level of consumption, mild impact on quality of life and on academic results, but low drinker identity. A cluster seemed short-term super-adapted in heavy drinking environment, showing high level of alcohol consumption and drinker identity, but low impact on quality of life and on academic results (all between clusters p values < 0.001 with Kruskal–Wallis tests).

Conclusion

The subjective experience of students from these clusters was significantly different (p value < 0.001), and could explain some inadequacy of certain prevention strategies, considering binge drinker student as a homogeneous group. Prospective studies are needed to explore changes over time of these clusters.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Charlotte Baey, Véronique Le Chevalier, Filipa Lopes and the Ecole Centrale Paris, Conférence des Grandes Ecoles, Mr G Majou, Conférence des Directeurs des Ecoles Françaises d’Ingénieurs, Mrs C Guiria, Conférence des Présidents d’Université, Mrs C Marseault, Association Des Services de Santé Universitaires, Dr A Perreve, and Dr Gerbault, Observatoire de la Vie Etudiante, Bureau National des Elèves Ingénieurs, Bureau Des Etudiants of Lorraine University, and all participating universities and students.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Addiction department, Hôpital Paul Brousse, APHP, 12 avenue Paul Vaillant-Couturier, 94804, Villejuif cedex, France

    Amandine Luquiens, Amine Benyamina & Henri-Jean Aubin

  2. Université Paris-Saclay, Univ. Paris-Sud, UVSQ, CESP, INSERM, Villejuif, France

    Amandine Luquiens, Amine Benyamina & Henri-Jean Aubin

  3. CMAP, Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France

    Amandine Luquiens

  4. Team HEALTHY, Bordeaux Population Health Research Center, INSERM, Univ. Bordeaux, UMR 1219, CHU Bordeaux, 33000, Bordeaux, France

    Christophe Tzourio

  5. Ecole Centrale-Supélec Paris, Paris, France

    Anis Ben Said, Haïm Sadik, Emilio Ferrer Sánchez Del Villar, Arthur Le Manach & Benjamin Ambrosino

Authors
  1. Amandine Luquiens
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  2. Anis Ben Said
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  3. Haïm Sadik
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  4. Emilio Ferrer Sánchez Del Villar
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  5. Arthur Le Manach
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  6. Benjamin Ambrosino
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  7. Christophe Tzourio
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  8. Amine Benyamina
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  9. Henri-Jean Aubin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Amandine Luquiens.

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Conflict of interest

LA has received sponsorship to attend scientific meetings, speaker honoraria, and consultancy fees from Lundbeck and Indivior. BA has received sponsorship to attend scientific meetings, speaker honoraria, and consultancy fees from Lundbeck, Mylan, Gilead, Jansenn Cilag and Indivior. AHJ has received sponsorship to attend scientific meetings, speaker honoraria, and consultancy fees from Bioprojet, D&A Pharma, Ethypharm, Lundbeck, Merck-Serono, Novartis, and Pfizer. AB, BSA, FSDVE, LMA, SH, and CT have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

The study was notified and authorized by the “Comité National Informatique et Libertés” with the number 1692676 v 0. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Responders completed the survey in complete anonymity. Responders were willing students recruited from the community. They were informed in writing the purpose of the survey before its commencement and that they were free to leave any time before completing the survey.

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Luquiens, A., Said, A.B., Sadik, H. et al. Alcohol consumption, drinker identity, and quality of life among students: why there cannot be one prevention strategy for all. Qual Life Res 27, 2629–2637 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-018-1923-3

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