ANÁLISIS DE FACTORES QUE INFLUYEN SOBRE EL USO DE ALCOHOL DE NIÑOS: UN PATH ANÁLISIS PROSPECTIVO.

The present study was aimed to analyze the impact of different risk factors and one protective factor on the frequency of alcohol consumption in children. In addition, it was sought to analyze the meditational role of alcohol expectancies in the relation between more distal factors and alcohol use. Finally, it was examined how initial use of alcohol affected initial alcohol expectancies. A prospective design with more than two causal links was used. Participants were 267 children (63% female, Mean age at baseline = 10.52, SD = 1.22) attending public and private schools for primary education (from third to sixth grade) from the city of Córdoba (Argentina). Different scales were used to measure personality traits, alcohol expectancies, drinking motives, perceived peer alcohol use, perceived parental alcohol use, participants' alcohol use, and perceived parental social support. There were two administrations of all instruments, a baseline and twelve months after another measurement. First, a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted for each of the scales, to obtain statistical evidence to support the use of each scale. Next, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and bivariate analyses were performed between the variables identified as predictors of frequency of alcohol consumption. Finally, to determine the effect that each of the factors included in the study had on frequency of alcohol consumption, a path analysis was conducted. The variables that best explained the frequency of alcohol use one year later were frequency of initial alcohol use, drinking motives in parental and peer contexts. All the remaining variables, but not the protective factor (parental social support), explained a smaller proportion of the total variance. Contentiousness and extroversion traits were less relevant to explain the frequency of alcohol use in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]