School of Public Health, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
School of Public Health, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
Int J Drug Policy. 2015 Dec;26(12):1231-7. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2015.09.001. Epub 2015 Sep 12.
The aim of the study was to provide in-depth understanding of how Chinese adolescents learn to drink and how they make decisions about the consumption (or not) of alcohol. This study explored the ways in which social and cultural factors shape the drinking trajectories of Chinese underage young people.
The study used a qualitative design to collect and analyse the data. We recruited adolescents aged between 14 and 17 from a range of secondary schools in Hong Kong. Focus group interviews were undertaken with 22 groups encompassing 111 participants. A thematic analysis based upon grounded theory was performed using NVivo 10.
The traditional Chinese drinking culture, characterised by the coming together of friends and relatives for celebrations, signifies the Chinese adolescents' first alcohol experiment. The adolescents' motivations for drinking essentially reflect the value placed upon alcohol within the Chinese culture - promoting conviviality, sociability and camaraderie. Whereas a sense of commonality encouraged alcohol use among them, there was little indication that drinkers and non-drinkers separately clustered around friendship networks. A high degree of self-regulation was exercised when drinking and this emerged as an acceptable social norm amongst young drinkers within social and cultural contexts. Most respondents saw underage drinking as an entirely normal and accepted part of social lives provided that it is kept under control.
This study sheds light on the Chinese adolescents' own understandings and interpretations of their drinking. Our findings suggest that interventions aimed to curtail underage drinking need to reflect social and cultural contexts within which alcohol comes into play and importantly, consider social environments that are conducive to underage drinking.
本研究旨在深入了解中国青少年如何学习饮酒以及他们如何做出饮酒（或不饮酒）的决定。本研究探讨了社会和文化因素如何塑造中国未成年青少年的饮酒轨迹。
本研究采用定性设计收集和分析数据。我们从香港的多所中学招募了 14 至 17 岁的青少年。对 22 个组的 111 名参与者进行了焦点小组访谈。使用 NVivo 10 基于扎根理论进行了主题分析。
传统的中国饮酒文化以朋友和亲戚聚会庆祝为特征，标志着中国青少年的第一次酒精实验。青少年饮酒的动机本质上反映了中国文化中对酒精的重视——促进欢乐、社交和友情。虽然共同的感觉鼓励他们饮酒，但并没有迹象表明饮酒者和不饮酒者分别围绕友谊网络聚集。在饮酒时，他们表现出高度的自我调节，这在社交和文化背景下是一种被接受的社交规范。大多数受访者认为，只要控制得当，未成年饮酒是社交生活中完全正常和可接受的一部分。
本研究揭示了中国青少年对自己饮酒的理解和解释。我们的研究结果表明，旨在遏制未成年饮酒的干预措施需要反映酒精发挥作用的社会和文化背景，重要的是，要考虑有利于未成年饮酒的社会环境。
