Citation

Kuntsche E, Knibbe RA, Gmel G, Engels R. Clin. Psychol. Rev. 2005; 25(7): 841-861.

Affiliation

Research Department, Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems (SIPA), PO Box 870, 1001 Lausanne, Switzerland.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.cpr.2005.06.002

PMID

16095785

Abstract

This article reviews evidence of adolescent and young adult drinking motives and their relation to possible consequences over the last 15 years. To this end, a computer-assisted search of relevant articles was conducted. Results revealed that most young people reported drinking for social motives, some indicated enhancement motives, and only a few reported coping motives. Social motives appear to be associated with moderate alcohol use, enhancement with heavy drinking, and coping motives with alcohol-related problems. However, an enormous heterogeneity was found in terms of how motives were measured: 10 to 40 items were grouped into between 2 and 10 dimensions and sometimes the same items occurred under different dimensions. Future studies should therefore use well-defined, theoretically based, homogenous instruments to disentangle cultural from measurement differences across surveys.