Earticle

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between sensation seeking, alcohol expectancies, problem drinking, and motivation for alcohol use to provide valuable information for prevention or intervention of adults' drinking problem. Methods: The participants were 297 adults (155 males and 142 females) living in Seoul and suburbs, whose ages ranged from 20 to 63, and average was 29.25 (SD=8.86). Psychological testings were used to measure Sensation Seeking Scale Form V, Alcohol Expectancy Questionnaire, Coopers Revised Drinking Motives Questionnaire, and Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) were used to measure problem drinking. Results: Problematic drinkers showed higher levels of sensation seeking and alcohol expectancies than non-problematic drinkers. Disinhibition, subscale of sensation seeking, was closely related to problem drinking and motivation for alcohol use. And, sensation seeking was closely related to social motives to drink. Alcohol expectancy for changes in social behavior accounted more variance of problem drinking and motivation for alcohol use than alcohol expectancy for relaxation and tension reduction did. Sensation seeking and alcohol expectancies were more closely related to motivation for alcohol use than problem drinking. And, Sensation seeking was more closely related to motivation for alcohol use and problem drinking than alcohol expectancies was. Conclusion: The present study suggests that sensation seeking and alcohol expectancies are more strongly related to motivation for alcohol use than drinking behavior itself, and alcohol expectancies as a cognitive variable are more determinant for problem drinking, and motivation for alcohol use. It was discussed with previous studies and suggested the information for further studies, prevention and intervention of problem drinking.

Objective: Suicide has become a wide problem in Korean society. This study seeks to examine the influence of early onset of drinking and drinking problems on suicide ideation and attempt among Korean adolescents. Methods: The 2009 Korean Youth Health Risk Behavior Survey, a nationwide dataset collected by the Korean Center for Disease Control, was used for analyses. The data contained a total of 5,066 adolescents between ages of 14 and 19. Result: The prevalence of early drinking onset (before age 13) was 16.6% and the problem drinking (defined as 2 or more points in the CRAFFT) among current drinkers was 40%. Among Korean adolescents, 19.1% reported suicidal ideation and 4.6% had attempted suicide. Youths who had began drinking before the age of 13 had higher risk of having suicidal ideation (odds ratio=1.31 for males and 1.50 for females) and attempting suicide (odds ratio=1.46 for both gender). Likewise, those identified as problem drinkers had higher risk of having suicidal ideation (males=1.48, females=1.73) and having had attempted suicide (males=1.89, females=2.27) after controlling for the covariates such as age, grade, economic situation, and depressive mood. The risk differed between male and female students. Conclusion: An analysis of a large national representative sample of Korean adolescents confirmed the previous research regarding the relationship between problematic alcohol behaviors and suicide thoughts and attempts. Intervention and prevention efforts for youth suicide should integrate risk factors such as alcohol problems and depressive thoughts.

Objectives: Drinking patterns are very much different in gender. This study was conducted in order to investigate whether alcohol expectancy, drinking refusal self-efficacy, family history on problem drinking, religion, and perceived health status have influenced on gender differences in problem drinking. Methods: The subjects of this study were 2,013 people(male 1,016, female 1,015). Data were collected using self-reported survey. Collected data were analyzed by frequency, t-test, and logistic regression. Results: The main findings from the gender differences are as follows. 1. Only women were likely to belong to a group of problem drinking when they have religion. 2. The onset of alcohol use was not significantly influenced to both genders. However, the average age of regular drinking was only significant for men. 3. Drinking refusal self-efficacy were highly significant variables for both gender. 4. According to alcohol expectancies, positive and negative expectancies were statistically significant for men, but only negative expectancies were significant for women. 5. Family history and perceived health status were only statistically significant variables for women. Conclusion: Based on these findings, results of the study imply the need for more attention on gender differences in problem drinking. So it is necessary to develop prevention education and specified intervention program by gender.

Objectives: This paper aims to identify the socio-demographic variables and drinking status variables that affect to the alcohol policy agreement, and to examine gaps of alcohol policy agreement and cognitive differences of alcohol policy effectiveness between the normal drinkers and the problem drinkers. Methods: Exposure data were taken from the 2009 Alcohol Policy Survey conducted by Korean Institute on Alcohol Problems. The samples were drawn from households and were selected randomly from eight provinces and seven large cities including Seoul. The total respondents were 569 comprising 286 men and 283 women 19 years and over. Results: The collection of data was conducted from October 1st to 15th, 2009. Participants were interviewed personally and the data was collected confidentially using the sealed envelope. Questionnaires were designed to assess agreement and cognitive effectiveness of the alcohol policies. The main findings may be summarized as follows: First, there are big cognitive gaps of alcohol policy agreement among the problem drinkers, normal drinkers, gender, age, and residents, drinkers, and problem drinkers. Second, we found big cognitive differences of alcohol policy effectiveness between the problem drinkers and normal drinkers. Normal drinkers are cognizing the alcohol policies more effective than problem drinkers. Third, the problem drinkers and normal drinkers agree to enforce the drinking driving policy and the on- and off- premise licence policy, and bar regulation policy are vert effective. Conclusion: In conclusion it is necessary to set up the National alcohol control policy to prevent harmful, hazardous drinking, and alcohol-related problems in Korea.

Objective: Recently women's drinking has increased in Korea. This study was conducted to investigate the changes in alcohol consumption of female university students and their drink-related behavior. Methods: The study focuses on these changes over a decade using self-administered questionnaire surveys and health examinations that were carried out for female university students in an area of Korea in 1999 and in 2009. Results: A total of 60.3% of the students in 1999 and 75.5% in 2009 responded that they drank alcohol (p<0.01). Increases in the frequency of alcohol drinking and alcohol drinks in single sitting were found (p<0.05). The drinking behavior of the students was mostly influenced by their friends/peers in both years. Significant change was found in their preferred type of alcohols (p<0.05), although the most preferred alcohol of the respondents was so-ju (Korean native vigor) in both years. Their preferred type of food accompany drinking was significantly changed (p<0.001). No significant difference in the amount of alcohol drinking both of underage drinkers and of-age drinkers was noted between the two years. Heavy drinkers in the 2009 population had significantly higher blood pressure than non-drinkers and/or moderate drinkers (p<0.05). This study indicates that the proportion of drinkers, opportunities of alcohol drinking have greatly increased compared to 10 years ago and there might be a rise in binge drinking among drinkers including underage students. Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that alcohol-blood pressure associations are considered to be of concern even in young females. This study also suggests that there is the need for gender-specific alcohol prevention programs or campaigns to intervene the drink-related behaviors of female students.

Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of individual characteristics and family strengths on social adaptation of non-ACOA and ACOA employees. Methods: To do so, total 1600 subjects from 15 workplaces and 25 alcohol counseling centers in Seoul, Gyunggi, Gangwon, Choongchung, Yeongnam, Honam Province, were sampled and surveyed with self-reporting questionnaires. College students and housewives were excluded, so 851 employees were included for data analysis. Results: The results of the study were followings. First, non-ACOA employees had higher scores on individual characteristics, family strengths, and social adaptation compared to ACOA employees. However, there was no significant difference active stress coping scores between non- ACOA employees and ACOA employees. Second, this study showed that positive thinking, active stress coping and family strengths significantly affected their social adaptation in both of them. In particular, non- ACOA employees were more affected by family strengths and ACOA employees were influenced by positive thinking. Conclusion: Based on the result, the researcher discussed some differentiated intervention methods and gave some suggestions for further studies.

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to build up the base of prevention and create an interventional plan for improvement in adjustments of schooling for COAs that verify the relationship between self-esteem, which is a personal resource and the teacher who is a social resource and can act in a mediator role in the relation between the stress of study and school adjustment for COAs(Children of Alcoholics). Method: For this purpose, a Self-administered Questionnaire Survey was conducted in high school students in Seoul and Gyeong-Gi Province, which used both stratified sampling and random sampling for its sampling method. 368 responses were used for the final analysis; The collected data is analyzed by frequency analysis and correlation analysis using Spss 15.0, and also analyzed by hierarchical regression analysis of Baron & Kenny(1986) for the verification of parameters. Result: As a result of this analysis, first, it shows 33.7% of research objects are COAs. In the comparison among the variables for COAs and non-COAs, the stress of study for COAs and non-COAs does not show a meaningful difference; however the results show that COAs have lower self-esteem with more problems in school adjustment and more difficult relationship issues with teachers in comparison with non-COAs. Second, the stress of study was seen to have a negative effect and, in this relationship, it is confirmed that self-esteem plays some role as partial mediation, whereas the relationship with the teacher plays the role as complete mediation. Conclusion: Based on this result, it is suggested that a practical way to improve the adjustment of schooling for COAs is by discussing and adjusting, as appropriate, the stress created by excessive study.

Objectives: This study investigated how monthly drinking amount of alcohol and self- esteem toward alcohol use were related to depression among high school students and identify whether self-esteem has moderating effect on depression. Methods: The population of this study was senior high students in Seoul, Korea. Eight senior high schools were randomly selected from Seoul City. One thousand five hundred and forty- seven responses from the sixteen schools were analyzed (nineteen were excluded). Adolescents' self- reports on alcohol behavior, depression and self-esteem scales were used. Results: Hierarchial multiple regression analyses revealed that gender, age, reported academic performance, alcohol consumption, self-esteem were significant predictors of depression and self-esteem had a role of moderating factor. Conclusion: The identification of protective and risk factors can be contribute to the development of effective intervention strategies to help for prevention of alcohol problem among high school students. Based on these findings, practical intervention for children adolescents were suggested to improve their self-esteem.

Objective: This study was conducted in order to investigate Goyang City officials’ psycho‐social health, job stress and drinking pattern and to provide basic information necessary to make policies for settling healthy drinking culture at workplace, promoting mental health, and reducing job stress. Method: For this study, 707 officials were surveyed using a questionnaire. Collected data were analyzed through descriptive statistics and frequency analysis using SPSS 15.0. As a reliability test of the questionnaire, internal consistency was confirmed with Cronbach`s α. In addition, one‐way ANOVA was used to test differences in major variables, and Pearson correlation analysis was used to test correlations among the variables. Results: 1. When the officials were grouped according to their overall psycho‐social health, 24.2% were in the high risk group, 75.2% in the potential risk group, and 9.6% in the healthy group. 2. In the results related to job stress, 16.4% of the officials were in need of special counseling and the percentage was higher in the female group (21.0%) than in the male group (13.8%), so job stress was statistically significantly higher in women than in men. In addition, job stress was high among those in their 50s according to age, and in those engaged in social ware and public services according to job category. 3. In the results related to drinking pattern, the age of first drinking was 19.6 years on the average and it was 19.1 among male officials and 20.2 among female ones. Those found to have alcohol dependence were 7.4% of the respondents, 10.6% of the male group, and 2.2% of the female group. Those found to have alcohol abuse were 10.3%, 13.2%, and 5.9%, respectively. 4. As to correlations among the three variables, the correlation between psycho‐social health and job stress was significant in both men and women, in all age groups except those in their 20s, and in those engaged in administration and construction. In addition, the correlation between AUDIT and job stress was significant in those engaged in driving. Conclusion: The results related to psycho‐social health suggest that it is necessary to apply active interventions to the high risk group, to establish a counseling system for officials, and to understand the characteristics of men and women and deploy male and female officials in adequate jobs based on the understanding. What is more, as Goyang City officials showed alcohol dependence above average and a higher level of alcohol abuse and alcohol‐related risk than other areas, it is required to plan education on drinking for the officials. In response to these needs, we need to expand institutions specializing in alcohol problems the community and to promote joint surveys through the network among governmental administrative agencies.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the state of drinking among office workers involving the amount and frequency of drinking in an effort to determine the impact of drinking on the workplaces of office workers. It's specifically meant to provide some information on how to properly cope with the drinking of office workers. Methods: The subjects in this study were every government worker in the city of K, South Choongchung Province. A self-administered anonymous survey was conducted by using structured questionnaires, and the collected data were analyzed with the statistical package SPSSWIN 11.0. Cross tabulation was utilized to grasp the relationship between the amount of their drinking and all the relevant variables, and t-test was carried out to look for connections between the independent variables and post-drinking experiences. Besides, multiple regression analysis and correlation analysis were made to find out the influence of the independent variables on the amount of drinking. Results: As for general characteristics involving age, drinking was mostly prevalent among the male workers who were in their 30s and 40s, and the rate of drinkers was especially higher among those who worked for four years or less. The smokers drank far more than the nonsmokers, and the workers who usually drank a half bottle of Soju drank more frequently and sometimes didn't remember what happened. And a greater amount of drinking led to a larger drinking frequency. The most dominant post-drinking experience was lower job efficiency. Conclusion: Office workers who drink are likely to encounter interpersonal problems, to get less attentive during job performance or to suffer from a disease due to drinking, which may result in deteriorating the productivity of their organizations. Therefore how to cope with the drinking of office workers should discreetly be considered to take appropriate measures.

Objectives: This study was conducted to investigate the effects of alcohol use on depressive mood and suicidal ideation among Korean adults. For this purpose, this study was conducted to examine the influence of alcohol use on depressive mood and suicidal ideation. Methods: 10,533 individuals participated in the Korea National Health & Nutrition Examination Survey conducted in 2009. Collected data were analyzed by frequency, X2 test, and logistic regression. Results: First, 25.2% of participants were problem drinkers and 15.1% of participants had alcohol addiction. Second, sex, age, income, education level, marital status, and health status were significantly associated with depressive mood and suicidal ideation. Third, problem drinkers and alcohol addiction have an impact on depressive mood and suicidal ideation. Conclusion: The findings have reinforced the need for developing a mental health disease prevention program in Korea with a more practical focus on alcohol use and mental health status.