Prevalence of adolescents who perceive their parents to have alcohol problems: a Swedish national survey using a web panel

Abstract

Aims: The primary aim is to estimate the prevalence of Swedish adolescents who perceive their parent(s) to have alcohol problems. Additional research questions pertain to the prevalence of adolescents who think someone close to them drinks too much alcohol and if this has hurt them or caused them problems.

Methods: A cross-sectional design was employed using a web-based survey targeted to 1000 Swedish 16-19-year-olds randomly selected from a web panel. The questionnaire included the CAST-6 scale, used to assess whether or not participants perceived their parents' alcohol consumption as problematic, and questions relating to whether or not they think someone close to them drinks too much and if this has caused them problems. Data was weighted using a post-stratification procedure.

Results: The proportion of adolescents classified as having parents with alcohol problems was 20.1%. Further, 44.0% reported that they think someone close to them drinks too much alcohol and 9.6% that this has hurt them or caused them problems.

Conclusions: These results indicate that the problem is widespread. Our findings are similar to previous research where a more indirect methodology has been adopted, using either psychiatric interviews or self-reported alcohol consumption of adults, to estimate the magnitude of the problem.

Keywords: Adolescent; alcohol-related disorders; child of impaired parents; children of Alcoholics Screening Test (CAST-6); cross-sectional studies; prevalence; web-panel.