Citation

Denault AS, Poulin F. Addict. Behav. 2017; 78: 15-21.

Affiliation

Département de psychologie, Université du Québec à Montréal, 100, rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montréal H2X 3P2, Québec, Canada. Electronic address: poulin.francois@uqam.ca.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.addbeh.2017.10.019

PMID

29121528

Abstract

This study examined the longitudinal associations between participation in individual and team sports and indicators of alcohol use during the high school years and beyond. A total of 310 youths were surveyed over six waves of data collection (ages 12, 14 to 17, and 19). Participation in individual and team sports was measured through phone interviews, whereas frequency of alcohol use, frequency of intoxication, and problematic alcohol use were self-reported. Control variables included participation in other types of organized activities, sex, family income and structure, parental education and knowledge, problem behaviors, deviant peers, and peer status. The results of autoregressive latent trajectory models revealed reciprocal associations between time spent in individual sports and frequency of alcohol use and intoxication. The results also revealed that time spent in team sports predicted an increase in frequency of alcohol use in middle adolescence. Lastly, the only significant finding at age 19 suggested that the initial number of hours spent in individual sports predicted lower scores on alcohol intoxication. These findings suggest that team sports act as a risk factor for less severe forms of alcohol use in middle adolescence, whereas individual sports act as a protective factor against more severe forms of alcohol use during adolescence and beyond.

Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Adolescence; Alcohol use; Growth curve; Sports; Young adulthood