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Affiliation
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Dalhousie University, Psychiatry and Psychology/Neuroscience , Halifax , Nova Scotia , Canada. |
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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: Although alcohol is the most socially accepted drug, little is known about the classification of alcohol consumers into clusters influencing drinking outcomes. Past research has demonstrated that injury/illness sensitivity predicts health protecting behaviors.
OBJECTIVES: The present study explored whether alcohol consumers can be classified based on injury/illness sensitivity and intentions to reduce drinking, and whether the identified clusters exhibited meaningful differences in negative affect and drinking levels.
METHODS: Four-hundred and eighty-six participants (54.3% male; mean [SD] age = 26.5 [7.2] years) completed online questionnaires between July and October of 2017. Questions were asked pertaining to injury/illness sensitivity, intentions to reduce drinking, negative affect, and heavy drinking behavior. A k-means cluster analysis was performed on illness/injury sensitivity and intentions to reduce drinking scores. We then examined whether clusters varied according to negative affect or drinking variables.
RESULTS: The k-means cluster analysis identified four clusters: Insensitive non-internalizers, Insensitive internalizers, Sensitive non-internalizers, and Sensitive internalizers. Sensitive internalizers reported the highest, whereas Insensitive non-internalizers reported the lowest, negative affect. Sensitive internalizers also had the lowest percentage of heavy drinkers.
CONCLUSION/importance: Current findings add to the alcohol literature by indicating that high sensitivity to illnesses/injuries and the internalization of sensitivities via behavior change intentions may provide the best protection against high alcohol consumption levels.
Language: en |