It is important to identify factors related to heavy alcohol use among adolescents, as this allows interventions aimed at reducing risk behavior and possible increasing harmful use of alcohol. OBJECTIVES: To determine the prevalence of heavy alcohol use and investigate the influence of sociodemographic, cultural and psychopathological variables on alcohol use among elementary and high-school students of public and private schools in Campinas, Brazil. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study using an intentional sampling technique. The questionnaire used was based on the CEBRID (Brazilian Information Center on Psychotropic Drugs) questionnaire and filled out anonymously by the subjects. The sample consisted of 2,287 elementary and high-school students from public and private schools in Campinas, Brazil, during the year of 1998. According World Health Organization criteria (WHO, 1981), alcohol use for 20 days or more in the 30 days prior to the study was considered heavy alcohol use. The "Polytomic Logistic Regression - Generalized Logits Model" was applied to identify the factors that influenced heavy alcohol use. RESULTS: Heavy alcohol use was seen in 11.9% of the sample, being more frequent among students at the inner-city public school belonging to socioeconomic classes A and B, who held down jobs and attended school in the afternoons. These students felt that their families did not understand or support them and also showed lower academic performance at school. CONCLUSIONS: The present study indicates that factors such as availability of funds, work , delayed schooling performance and unfavorable personal and family situations were related to heavy alcohol use among adolescents.
Alcoholism; Students; Cross-sectional studies; Morbidity surveys
