NCJ Number
219338
Journal
Journal of Drug Education Volume: 37 Issue: 1 Dated: 2007 Pages: 71-81
Date Published
2007
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This study examined the reasons for and immediate consequences of an alcohol overdose as explained by 217 undergraduate students who had required a medical emergency transport because of excessive alcohol intake.
Abstract
The study found that 26 of the students attributed their overdose only to bad luck, and 191 students indicated their bad decisionmaking was responsible for their alcohol overdose. The students who attributed their overdose to bad luck were more likely to decide to change the type of alcoholic beverage consumed and worry about problems the overdose might cause with friends, and they were less likely to change how much they would drink. They were also less likely to indicate that they had learned something about themselves because of the overdose. The fact that the majority of students took responsibility for their overdose suggests that they knew they had engaged in risky experimentation. Friends were not blamed for pushing alcohol, but neither were they reported to be a protective buffer in helping monitor consumption. The majority of students intended to slow down their pace of alcohol consumption, and almost half planned to decrease the frequency of alcohol consumption. Many reported they had not known how to pace their drinking prior to their overdose. A realistic approach for preventing dangerous alcoholic overdoses might be to educate students about how many drinks an hour they can safely consume of various types of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the study were tracked through the student health center from fall 2002 to fall 2005. After release from the hospital and prior to their assessment for potential problematic drinking at the university's assessment program office, the students voluntarily anonymously completed the questionnaire, which contained a list of 14 possible reasons why the overdose occurred. Students checked the reasons they believed applied to them. 32 references