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Background: It is important to identify students who would benefit from early interventions to reduce harmful drinking patterns and associated consequences. the Brief Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire (B-YAACQ) could be particularly useful as a screening tool in university settings. Objectives. The present study examined the utility of the B-YAACQ to distinguish among students at-risk for problematic alcohol use as measured by the AUDIT. Objectives: The present study examined the utility of the B-YAACQ to distinguish among students at-risk for problematic alcohol use as measured by the AUDIT. Methods: A sample of 6382 students (mean age=20.28, SD=3.75, 72.2% females) from seven countries (i.e., U.S., Canada, South-Africa, Spain, Argentina, Uruguay, England) completed the B-YAACQ, the AUDIT and different measures of alcohol use. Results: ROC analyses suggested that a cutoff score of 5 maximized the YAACQ's discrimination utility to differentiate between students at low versus moderate/high risk in the total sample and across countries (except in Canada, where the cutoff was 4). In addition, a cutoff of 7 differentiated between students at low/moderate versus high risk in the total sample, while cutoffs of 10, 9, 8 and 7 differentiate between students at low/moderate versus high risk in Uruguay, U.S and Spain (10), Argentina (9), England (8), and Canada and South-Africa (7), respectively. Students classified at the three risk levels (i.e., low, moderate and high) differed in age (i.e., a younger age was associated with higher risk) and drinking patters (i.e., higher drinking frequency, quantity, binge drinking and AUDIT and B-YAACQ scores in the higher risk groups). Conclusions: This study suggest that the B-YAACQ is a useful tool to identify college students at-risk for experiencing problematic patterns of alcohol use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Use of protective behavioral strategies (PBS) has been associated with reduced alcohol-related harms among college students. However, most of this research has been conducted among U.S. samples. The present study examines the use of PBS in an international context. Participants (n = 1512) were recruited from universities in Spain (n = 298), Argentina (n = 439), and the U.S. (n = 775) to determine if there are differences in PBS use across countries and/or across sex. Further, we examined whether the association between PBS use and negative consequences differ across country and sex. We found that U.S. students reported the most frequent use of Stopping/Limiting Drinking PBS (M = 3.32, SD = 1.23) compared to Argentine (M = 2.89, SD = 0.97) and Spanish (M = 2.83, SD = 0.94) students. Argentine students reported the least frequent use of Serious Harm Reduction PBS (M = 4.57, SD = 0.99) compared to U.S. (M = 5.09, SD = 0.98) and Spanish (M = 5.03, SD = 0.78) students. Elastic net regression analyses stratified by country indicated most individual PBS predicted decreased negative alcohol-related consequences, although two items consistently predicted increased consequences and we observed some variability in the most predictive specific strategies in each country. Across each subscale and for 32 of 40 individual items, females reported more frequent use of PBS than males (ps<.05). From the perspective of developing and adapting interventions, we recommend the cultural context in which PBS are used is taken into account. Although future work is needed to delineate cultural factors underlying the country-level differences we found, these findings have implications for the most promising PBS to target for college students in each country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Past research with college students has found that substance use motives, particularly coping motives, mediate the relationship between negative affect and alcohol- and marijuana-related outcomes. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate substance use motives of dual users of both substances (past 30-day use; not necessarily simultaneous use) and identify any mediation effects that are either common to both substances or substance-specific. Methods: The majority of dual users (n = 2,034) identified as being White, non-Hispanic (63.8%), female (69.08%), and reported a mean age of 20.24 (SD = 3.16) years. To test study aims, path models were conducted such that negative affect (stress, depressive and anxiety symptoms) were independently modeled as predictors of substance use outcomes (i.e. quantity and consequences) via substance use motives. Results: All three negative affect symptoms were indirectly related to both alcohol and marijuana consequences via coping motives, such that higher negative affect was associated with higher coping motives; which in turn were positively associated with consequences. Substance-specific effects were also found: (a) stress was indirectly related to both alcohol and marijuana use quantity via enhancement motives, (b) depressive/anxiety symptoms were indirectly related to alcohol use quantity via enhancement motives, and (c) all three negative affect symptoms were indirectly related to both marijuana use quantity and negative consequences via expansion motives. Conclusions: Findings suggests that dual users of alcohol and marijuana with negative affect symptoms engage in substance use for similar reasons as single substance users with negative affect symptoms. Intervention efforts should examine ways to replace substance-related coping and expansion methods with non-substance-related methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The use of protective behavioral strategies (PBS) has been found to attenuate the relationship between alcohol use and related consequences. Objectives: The current study examined PBS use as a moderator of the association between alcohol use and consequences in multiple samples (N =  9) of college students with different sample sizes (e.g., ns 125-736). We also examined sex as a moderator of the PBS moderation analyses. Across all samples, we predicted that the use of more PBS would attenuate the use-consequences relation. Methods: In total, 3,524 college students completed online measures of alcohol use, consequences, and PBS use (i.e., PBSS) across two sites. Conclusions/importance: In the analyses, 3 two-way interactions were consistent with the literature (i.e., use-consequences relation weakest among those with high PBS use), 6 were opposite of what was reported in the literature (i.e., use-consequences relation strongest among those with high PBS use), and 39 were not statistically significant. These results corroborate, contradict, and extend the current body of knowledge in the extant alcohol PBS literature. In the examination of three-way interactions in the combined sample, serious harm reduction (SHR) PBS was found to moderate the use-consequences relation among female, but not among male students. Specifically, the use-consequences relation was weakest among female students who used more SHR PBS indicating that SHR PBS may be an important intervention target for female college students. Additional experimental and longitudinal studies are needed to examine the effects of PBS use on the use-consequences relation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Understanding the potential psychosocial mechanisms that explain (i.e., mediate) the associations between depressive symptoms and alcohol-related problems can improve interventions targeting college students. Objectives: The current research examined four distinct facets of rumination (e.g., problem-focused thoughts, counterfactual thinking, repetitive thoughts, and anticipatory thoughts) and drinking to cope motives as potential explanatory mechanisms by which depressive symptoms are associated with increased alcohol-related problems. Method: Participants were undergraduate students from a large, southeastern university in the United States that consumed at least one drink per typical week in the previous month (n = 403). The majority of participants were female (n = 291; 72.2%), identified as being either White, non-Hispanic (n = 210; 52.1%), or African American (n = 110; 27.3%), and reported a mean age of 21.92 (SD = 5.75) years. Results: Structural equation modeling was conducted examining the concurrent associations between depressive symptoms, rumination facets, drinking to cope motives, and alcohol-related problems (i.e., cross-sectional). There was one significant double-mediated association that suggested that increased depressive symptoms is associated with increased problem-focused thoughts, which is associated with higher drinking to cope motives and alcohol-related problems. Conclusions/Importance: Our results suggests that problem-focused thoughts at least partially explains the associations between depression and maladaptive coping (i.e., drinking to cope), which in turn is related to problematic drinking among college students. Limitations and future directions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]