Parental and Societal Endorsement as a Factor in Alcohol Consumption by Adolescents and Youth

摘要

A twenty year retrospective longitudinal study of adolescents and youths in Malta was completed to determine the role of "endorsement" in the patterns of use of alcoholic beverages by secondary school students. The concept of behavioural endorsement is defined. A series of national secondary student surveys established adolescent alcohol use patterns and attitudes. Adolescents in Malta are initiating alcohol consumption at an earlier age, drink more often and drink more per occasion than the adult population and previous generations of young people.These increases in adolescent and youth alcohol use patterns are consistent with an increase in the family's and society's legal, business and social organizations' explicit and implicit endorsement of the use of alcohol by children and adolescents as measured through trend line analysis and ANOVA over disparate variables.