Alcohol consumption in Lithuanian school-aged children during 1994-2002

Abstract

Alcohol consumption becomes an important social and health problem among youth in many countries. Analysis of data on alcohol consumption behavior from World Health Organization Cross-National Study on Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) is presented in the article. This survey is carried out in majority of European countries including Lithuania. Aim of this study was to analyze features and trends of alcohol consumption among representative sample of 11, 13 and 15-year-old school children and to compare results with international data.

Methods: Patterns and trends of alcohol consumption were analyzed in three cross sectional questionnaire surveys of the representative sample of Lithuanian secondary school student's aged 11, 13 and 15 years in 1994, 1998 and 2002. Respectively, 5428, 4513 and 5645 respondents have filled in the questionnaires anonymously in the classroom according the methodology of international HBSC study.

Results: Boys were using alcohol on the regular basis (once a week or more often) more frequently than girls. Prevalence of regular alcohol consumption has increased from 9.4 to 13.6% in boys and from 4.2% to 6.5% in girls (p<0.05). Beer was the most popular alcohol drink among the students and was consumed respectively by 8.9%, 10.2% and 12.7% boys, and by 3.4%, 4.6%, 5.4% girls at least once per week. Prevalence of respondents who have reported the drunkenness (two or more times) has increased in boys from 13.3% to 30.1%, and in girls from 27.1% to 19.6% during period 1994-2002 (p<0.05).

Conclusions: Trend of increase of alcohol consumption among school-aged children was observed in Lithuania during 1994-2002. Boys tend to be more frequent regular users of alcohol than girls. Alcohol consumption was significantly increasing with age. Alcohol use behaviors of Lithuanian school-aged children tend to be closer to countries of the Western Europe and the Nordic countries during the period of observation.