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. 2022 Feb:125:107155.
doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2021.107155. Epub 2021 Oct 19.

Assessing parents' motives for talking about alcohol with their emerging adult children

Lucy E Napper  1 , Bradley M Trager  2 , Rob Turrisi  3 , Joseph W LaBrie  2
Affiliations

Assessing parents' motives for talking about alcohol with their emerging adult children

Lucy E Napper et al. Addict Behav. 2022 Feb.

Abstract

Past research has explored the content and frequency of alcohol-specific communication between parents and their emerging adult children. The current study aimed to address a gap in the research by examining parents' motivation for discussing alcohol. To accomplish this, we developed a multidimensional Parent Motives for Alcohol Communication Scale (PMACS). A total of 633 parents completed the PMACS along with measures assessing communication frequency, communication content, attitudes toward drinking, relationship quality, and perceptions of child alcohol use. An Exploratory Factor Analysis yielded five core communication motives. Parents were commonly motivated by desires to prevent their child's alcohol use, to respond to their child's heavy drinking, to teach their child how to drink safely, to meet relationship needs or expectations, and by a family history of alcohol problems. After controlling for demographic factors, communication motives predicted frequency of alcohol-specific communication. The patterns of relationship among motives and conceptually related constructs provided preliminary support for the construct validity of the PMACS.

Keywords: Alcohol use; Communication motives; Emerging adulthood; Parent communication.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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