NCJ Number
179027
Journal
Substance Use & Misuse Volume: 34 Issue: 12 Dated: 1999 Pages: 1619-1645
Editor(s)
Stanley Einstein Ph.D
Date Published
1999
Length
27 pages
Annotation
This study examined gender-specific changes in alcoholic beverage preference by age group in three Swiss linguistic regions, the relationship between preference and self-reporting of alcohol-related problems, and sociocultural and linguistic influences.
Abstract
The sample of 953 subjects used for this study was a subsample of the 1987 Swiss National Survey on Alcohol. Alcohol consumption was measured separately for wine, beer, and spirits, in grams per day, by means of a quantity-frequency index. Subjects were asked to record their usual consumption during the previous 7 days or, if a particular beverage had not been consumed, their usual consumption of it over the previous 12 months. To assess whether beverage preferences had remained stable over the 8-year period, the preferences in 1987 were cross-tabulated with those in 1995. The tables were longitudinally analyzed by testing symmetry models, an extension of the McNemar Test for polytomous variables. Preference was defined as consuming at least two-thirds of total consumption as a single beverage. Findings show that preference differed by region and remained relatively stable. Only young adults changed, adopting typical regional patterns. Self-reporting, remission, and incidence of problem reporting were related to total intake and to changes in total intake, but only at younger ages were they related to changes in preference. Beverage preference had little value as a predictor of self-reporting of problems. 7 tables and 54 references