Association Between Alcohol Expectancy and Drinking Behaviors in Summer Vacation and Last Year Among College Students

BACKGROUND: Drinking in summer vacation, as an important part of college students’ drinking behavior, has rarely been studied. At present, there is no research to explore the association between alcohol expectancy and college students’ drinking behavior during the summer vacation. METHODS: A total of 487 college students were selected from three universities in Chongqing from July 30, 2017, to August 30, 2017, by cluster sampling. The electronic questionnaires were distributed to complete the anonymous survey related to drinking. The questionnaire on drinking mainly included baseline characteristics, influencing factors related to drinking, drinking behavior in the last year and summer vacation, and alcohol expectancy. Independent sample t-test and one-way ANOVA were used for multi-factor analysis. Multi-level logistic regression analysis and ordered logistic regression analysis were used for multivariate analysis. RESULTS: The past drinking rate in the study group was 86.24%. In the past year, the drinking rate and binge drinking rate of college students were 63.24% and 23.20%. In summer drinking, these two indicators were 29.57% and 8.42%, respectively. About 92.50% of the moderate and heavy drinking groups among college students had drinking behavior during the summer vacation. The average negative expectancy among college students was 3.26 ± 0.87 while the average positive expectancy was 2.63 ± 0.66. In drinking last year, positive expectancy was a risk factor for occasional and light drinking compared with those of non-drinkers (P<0.05). In summer vacation drinking, compared with those of non-drinkers, negative expectancy was a protective factor for occasional drinking (OR: 1.847, 95% CI: 1.293–2.638), negative expectancy and positive expectancy were both influencing factors for light drinking (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: The drinking rate in the study group was at a high level in the past. The association between alcohol expectancy and drinking behavior among college students would be different according to the period and amount of drinking.