Impact of parent-child communication and perceived sanctions from drinking on adolescent alcohol use in Maui County

Although many attributes of family dynamics have been examined with regard to their impacts on underage drinking, parent-child communication has received limited attention in the literature and may prove helpful for interventions in the literature. This assessment used data from surveys administered in after-school programs in Maui County, Hawaii to further examine the parents' role in preventing underage drinking. Two factors were explored for their impacts on drinking behavior: parent-child discussions and perceived parental sanctioning of alcohol use. Average alcohol prevalence within Maui youth aged 12 – 17 in the past 30 days was 1.7 drinking days and less than one day for consuming 5 or more drinks within a couple of hours. Youth ages 12-17 (n=572; 46.7% female; 25.2% alcohol drinkers; 16.4% binge drinkers) participated in the study. No significant differences for the reported number of days of drinking (chi-square=1.38, p>0.05) and the number of days of binge drinking (chi-square=0.31, p>0.05) between those that did and did not have parent-child communications was found. A significant difference was found, however, for the number of drinking days (chi-square=38.6, p<0.05) and the number of binge drinking days (chi-square=39.4, p<0.05), for those who perceived parent sanctions and those who did not. These findings suggest that parent-child communication may be most influential when characterized in such a way as to include well-defined restrictions against alcohol use.