Alcohol consumption among university students in Ireland and the United Kingdom from 2002 to 2014: a systematic review

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Date
2016-02-19
Authors
Davoren, Martin P.
Demant, Jakob
Shiely, Frances
Perry, Ivan J.
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BioMed Central
Published Version
10.1186/s12889-016-2843-1
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Abstract
Background: Alcohol is a leading cause of global suffering. Europe reports the uppermost volume of alcohol consumption in the world, with Ireland and the United Kingdom reporting the highest levels of binge drinking and drunkenness. Levels of consumption are elevated among university students. Thus, this literature review aims to summarise the current research on alcohol consumption among university students in the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. Methods: MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE and PsychInfo were systematically searched for literature from January 2002 until December 2014. Each database was searched using the following search pillars: alcohol, university student, Ireland or the United Kingdom and prevalence studies. Results: Two thousand one hundred twenty eight articles were retrieved from electronic database searching. These were title searched for relevance. 113 full texts were retrieved and assessed for eligibility. Of these, 29 articles were deemed to meet inclusion criteria for the review. Almost two thirds of students reported a hazardous alcohol consumption score on the AUDIT scale. Over 20 % reported alcohol problems over their lifetime using CAGE while over 20 % exceed sensible limits each week. Noteworthy is the narrowing of the gender gap throughout the past decade. Conclusion: This is the first review to investigate consumption patterns of university students in Ireland and the United Kingdom. A range of sampling strategies and screening tools are employed in alcohol research which preclude comparability. The current review provides an overview of consumption patterns to guide policy development.
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Keywords
Alcohol , Prevalence , Review , Students
Citation
Davoren, M. P., Demant, J., Shiely, F. and Perry, I.J. (2016) 'Alcohol consumption among university students in Ireland and the United Kingdom from 2002 to 2014: a systematic review'. BMC Public Health, 16 :173 (13pp). doi: 10.1186/s12889-016-2843-1
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https://hdl.handle.net/10468/3335
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Public Health - Journal Articles
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© 2016 Davoren et al. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.