Exploring Drinking Motives and Alcohol Use in College Students: The Moderating Effects of Gender

ABSTRACT

This study explored associations between drinking motives and alcohol use and the moderating effects of gender. The data used in this study was collected from a University in Hawai‘i, with a sample size of 172 participants. The key findings of the study are as follows: About 24.4% of the participants had drinking problems, as indicated by an AUDIT score of 8 or higher. Social motives were the highest drinking motives, followed by enhancement, coping, and conformity motives. Coping motives were significantly associated with alcohol use. Gender significantly moderated the association between coping motives and alcohol use. Based on these findings, the study highlights the importance of policies and intervention programs that consider the effects of drinking motives and gender on alcohol use in college students.

KEYWORDS:

• Drinking motives
• alcohol use
• gender
• college students
• Hawai‘i

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.