Department of Public Health Sciences, Stockholm University, SE-106 91, Stockholm, Sweden.
Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
BMC Public Health. 2023 Jan 24;23(1):162. doi: 10.1186/s12889-023-15097-w.
Alcohol abuse is not only harmful to the consumer but may also negatively impact individuals in the drinker's social environment. Alcohol's harm to others is vital to consider when calculating the true societal cost of alcohol use. Children of parents who have alcohol use disorder tend to have an elevated risk of negative outcomes regarding, e.g., health, education, and social relationships. Research on the general youth population has established a link between parental drinking and offspring alcohol use. However, there is a lack of knowledge regarding other outcomes, such as health. The current study aimed to investigate the associations between parental drinking and children's psychological and somatic complaints, and perceived stress.
Data were derived from a nationally representative sample, obtained from the 2010 Swedish Level-of-Living survey (LNU). Parents and adolescents (ages 10-18) living in the same households were interviewed independently. The final study sample included 909 adolescents from 629 households. The three outcomes, psychological and somatic complaints and perceived stress, were derived from adolescents' self-reports. Parents' self-reports of alcohol use, both frequency and quantity, were used to categorise adolescents as having abstaining, low-consuming, moderate-drinking, or heavy-drinking parents. Control variables included adolescents' gender, age, family structure, and household socioeconomic status. Linear and binary logistic regression analyses were performed.
Parental heavy drinking was more common among adolescents living in more socioeconomically advantaged households and among adolescents living with two custodial parents or in reconstituted families. Adolescents with heavy-drinking parents reported higher levels of psychological and somatic complaints and had an increased likelihood of reporting stress, compared with those having moderate-drinking parents. These associations remained statistically significant when adjusting for all control variables.
The current study's results show that parental alcohol consumption is associated with poorer offspring adolescent health. Public health policies that aim to reduce parental drinking or provide support to these adolescents may be beneficial. Further studies investigating the health-related outcomes among young people living with heavy-drinking parents in the general population are needed to gain more knowledge about these individuals and to implement adequate public health measures.
酗酒不仅对消费者有害，还可能对饮酒者社交环境中的其他人产生负面影响。在计算酒精使用的真实社会成本时，必须考虑到酒精对他人的危害。父母有酗酒障碍的孩子往往面临更高的风险，例如在健康、教育和社会关系方面出现负面结果。对一般青年人群的研究已经确定了父母饮酒与子女饮酒之间的联系。然而，对于其他结果，例如健康，我们的了解还很有限。本研究旨在调查父母饮酒与子女心理和躯体抱怨以及感知压力之间的关联。
数据来自全国代表性样本，来自 2010 年瑞典生活水平调查（LNU）。居住在同一家庭中的父母和青少年（10-18 岁）分别接受了采访。最终的研究样本包括 629 户家庭中的 909 名青少年。心理和躯体抱怨和感知压力这三个结果是根据青少年的自我报告得出的。父母的饮酒频率和数量的自我报告用于将青少年分为不饮酒、低消费、中度饮酒或重度饮酒的父母。控制变量包括青少年的性别、年龄、家庭结构和家庭社会经济地位。进行了线性和二元逻辑回归分析。
在社会经济地位较高的家庭中，以及在与两个监护父母或重组家庭一起生活的青少年中，父母的重度饮酒更为常见。与中度饮酒的父母相比，有重度饮酒父母的青少年报告的心理和躯体抱怨水平更高，报告压力的可能性也更高。在调整所有控制变量后，这些关联仍然具有统计学意义。
本研究的结果表明，父母的饮酒与较差的子女青少年健康相关。旨在减少父母饮酒或为这些青少年提供支持的公共卫生政策可能是有益的。需要进一步研究一般人群中与重度饮酒父母一起生活的年轻人的健康相关结果，以增加对这些人的了解并实施适当的公共卫生措施。
