4 J. Østergaard & S. B. Andrade J Subst Use, Early Online: 1–10Table 1. Sample characteristics by gender.J Subst Use Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by 80.198.89.98 on 07/15/13For personal use only.All Male Femalen ¼466 n ¼ 272 n ¼194Categorical variables Sig.Occupation –Student 23.2 22.4 24.2Employed 74.3 75.4 72.7Unemployed 2.9 2.2 3.1Education –Secondary 9.4 9.2 9.8Upper secondary education 26.4 25.7 27.3Diploma/Bachelor degree 49.1 46.7 52.6Graduate degree 15.0 18.4 10.3Income ***Less than £1200 39.9 34.9 46.9£1200–1799 25.8 22.4 30.4£1800–3000 25.3 28.3 18.6Above £3000 10.1 14.3 4.1Regional area –London 42.9 41.5 44.9University city 20.0 21.3 18.0Seaside town 19.7 18.8 21.1Military town 17.4 18.4 16.0Attend clubs –No 4.5 4.4 4.61–3 times 38.2 34.2 43.84–8 times 39.1 40.8 36.6More than 9 times 18.2 20.6 15.0Motives –No motive 14.4 14.7 13.9Save money 35.8 31.3 42.3Out of control 7.1 7.7 6.2To be social 25.3 28.7 20.6Not go <strong>out</strong> sober 5.4 4.4 6.7Part of going <strong>out</strong> 12.0 13.2 10.3Pre-drink –Yes 59.9 57.4 63.4No 40.0 42.6 36.6Continuous variablesSig. M SD Min Max M SD Min Max M SD Min MaxAge – 23.2 4.0 18 35 23.4 4.2 18 35 23.0 3.8 18 35Average age on location – 23.3 2.4 19.7 28.4 23.2 2.5 19.7 28.4 23.4 2.4 19.7 28.4Frequency drunk *** 4.9 3.7 0 11 5.6 3.8 0 11 3.9 3.5 0 11Units <strong>pre</strong>-drinkingy ** 8.7 7.3 0 45.2 9.8 8.5 0 45.2 7.4 5.9 0 30Hours <strong>pre</strong>-drinkingy ** 2.6** 1.8 0 7 2.4 2.1 0 7 1.7 1.2 0 7M ¼ Mean, SD ¼ St<strong>and</strong>ard deviation; ***p 5 0.001; **p 5 0.05.yEstimated for <strong>pre</strong>-drinkers only.social, (d) to not go <strong>out</strong> sober, (e) as part of going <strong>out</strong>, <strong>and</strong>(f) not identifying any motives at all.AnalysisWe divided our analysis by gender because <strong>pre</strong>vious researchhas documented differences in males’ <strong>and</strong> females’ motivesfor drinking (Cooper, 1994; Gire, 2002) <strong>and</strong> alcohol quantityintake (Wilsnack et al., 2000). We also examined whetheryoung people’s <strong>pre</strong>-drinking was influenced by the type of baror club they planned to go to later in the evening (e.g. bar withhigh-priced alcohol) by calculating the interclass correlation(ICC). We found that 15.9% of the variation in males’ <strong>pre</strong>drinking<strong>and</strong> 29.1% of females’ <strong>pre</strong>-drinking depended on aspecific bar or club.Due to the high ICC, we use a multilevel logit model toestimate the likelihood of <strong>pre</strong>-drinking <strong>and</strong> a multilevelPoisson model to estimate the likelihood of consuming largerquantities of alcohol amongst those who <strong>pre</strong>-drank on the<strong>night</strong> of the survey. The multilevel models divide the variationin data into two levels: a higher level that accounts for thevariation between the different locations, <strong>and</strong> a lower levelthat accounts for individual variation within each location.When analyzing the location-specific variance in the drinkingpatterns, we include two higher ordered variables: city <strong>and</strong>average age at bar/club/pub location. To analyze individualvariation, we include the variables: age, occupation, education,income, frequency of intoxication, frequency of clubbing<strong>and</strong> motives for <strong>pre</strong>-drinking.Because the quantities young people consume could beinfluenced by the length of time they <strong>pre</strong>-drink (Hammersley,2005), the Poisson regression estimates are adjusted byincluding a variable measuring time exposure (over how manyhours the person was <strong>pre</strong>-drinking). We conduct two multilevelPoisson models – one with<strong>out</strong> <strong>and</strong> one with aninteraction term – between motives <strong>and</strong> low income level to
DOI: 10.3109/14659891.2013.784368 Pre-drinking <strong>and</strong> motives 5J Subst Use Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by 80.198.89.98 on 07/15/13For personal use only.test whether the identification of lower-earning males <strong>and</strong>females with specific motives is associated with the consumptionof larger quantities of alcohol. We set ‘‘savingmoney’’ as the reference category for the motive variablebecause, according to <strong>pre</strong>vious qualitative studies (DeJong &DeRicco 2010), it is one of the main <strong>pre</strong>-drinking motives.Odds ratios (OR) <strong>and</strong> incidence rate ratios (IRR) arecalculated with Stata’s Poisson regression estimationprograme.ResultsMore males (58.4%) than females participated in the surveystudy, consistent with other bar <strong>and</strong> club studies (Hugheset al., 2007; Measham et al., 2011a; Ravn, 2010) (seeTable 1). The mean age was 23.2 years (23.4 for males <strong>and</strong>23.0 for females, t ¼ 1.00, p ¼ 0.320). Most of the youngpeople were either employed (74.3%) or students (23.2%). Anotably large percentage – 9.4% – reported having completedonly secondary education as their highest degree <strong>and</strong> 26.4%had completed or were completing upper secondary school(i.e. the education of 14-to-19-year-olds, such as A-levels <strong>and</strong>GSCS). Ab<strong>out</strong> half (49.1%) of the interviewees had, or werecompleting, a national diploma or bachelor degree, <strong>and</strong> 15.0%were currently completing, or had completed, post-graduateschool (MA <strong>and</strong> PhD).Before taxes, 39.9% reported average earnings less than£1200 ($1850) per month. Twenty-five per cent earnedbetween £1200 <strong>and</strong> £1799 ($1850–2750), 25% earnedbetween £1800 <strong>and</strong> £3000 ($2750–4650), <strong>and</strong> only 10%earned more than £3000. Males reported significantly higheraverage monthly incomes than females (Chi ¼ 23.032, df. ¼ 3,p50.000).Amongst the young people, 62.5% reported either regularor party smoking. More than half of the 18-to-35-year-oldshad gone clubbing at least four times a month during the<strong>pre</strong>ceding 30 days. The average number of times therespondents felt intoxicated during the <strong>pre</strong>ceding 30 dayswas 4.9, with males more likely to report intoxication thanfemales (5.6 males versus 3.9 females, t ¼ 5.02, p50.001).More than half (59.9%) of the sample had been <strong>pre</strong>drinkingon the <strong>night</strong> of the interview. Amongst those who<strong>pre</strong>-drank (n ¼ 279), an average of 8.7 units of alcohol wasconsumed <strong>before</strong> a <strong>night</strong> <strong>out</strong>. Males who <strong>pre</strong>-drank had ahigher average unit consumption than females (9.80 malesversus 7.42 females, t ¼ 2.72, p50.01). Pre-drinkers beganto consume alcohol 2.1 hours <strong>before</strong> their <strong>night</strong> <strong>out</strong>, <strong>and</strong> males<strong>pre</strong>-drank for a longer period than females (2.36 h malesversus 1.68 h females, t ¼ 3.29, p50.001).The young people’s main motive for <strong>pre</strong>-drinking was‘‘saving money’’ (35.8%), a reason that more females (42.3%)than males (31.3%) reported. The second most reported motivewas ‘‘to be social’’, with which more males (28.7%) identifiedthan females (20.6%). The third motive most mentioned byboth males (14.7%) <strong>and</strong> females (13.9%) was ‘‘not identifyingwith any reason for <strong>pre</strong>-drinking’’ (either because therespondents did not see themselves as regular <strong>pre</strong>-drinkers orbecause they had no motive). Pre-drinking ‘‘to avoid going <strong>out</strong>sober’’ <strong>and</strong> ‘‘drinking to get wasted or <strong>out</strong> of control’’ was theleast common main motive for both males <strong>and</strong> females.Table 2. Results for <strong>pre</strong>-drinking (Y1). Coefficients are shown in oddsratio.MalesFemalesOR Std. OR Std.Level 2: locational variationRegional areaLondon Ref. Ref.University city 0.331** (0.169) N.S. –Seaside town N.S. – N.S. –Military town N.S. – 5.780* (0.993)Average age on location 0.692** (0.068) N.S. –Level 1: individual variationAge N.S. – 0.864** (0.037)OccupationStudent Ref. Ref.Employed 0.280** (0.126) N.S. –Unemployed N.S. – N.S. –EducationUpper secondary Ref. Ref.Diploma/Bachelor N.S. – N.S. –Graduate degree N.S. – N.S. –Secondary N.S. –IncomeLess £1200 Ref. Ref.£1200–1799 N.S. – N.S. –£1800–3000 N.S. – N.S. –Above £3000 N.S. – N.S. –Times drunk 1.092** (0.047) 1.195** (0.090)Clubbing N.S. – N.S. –Obs. 272 194Number of groups 27 27Obs. per group avg. 10.3 7.2ICC (<strong>before</strong>/after) 15.9%/40.0% 29.1%/.17.8%*p 5 0.10; **p 50.05.Table 2 shows the result of the logit multilevel models formales <strong>and</strong> females, respectively. The models estimate theinfluence of sociodemographic <strong>and</strong> socioeconomic factors onwhether males <strong>and</strong> females <strong>pre</strong>-drink <strong>before</strong> the event-specific<strong>night</strong>. When the explanatory variables were included in themultilevel logit model, the ICC decreased from 15.9% to lessthan 0.0% for males <strong>and</strong> from 29.1% to 17.8% for females (i.e.by 38.8%). Thus, when we included a multilevel design thatcontrols for higher ordered variables, almost all locationspecificvariation disappeared for males <strong>and</strong> was reducedsignificantly for females.For males, the multilevel logit model revealed a higherordered association between age <strong>and</strong> location of bar, club <strong>and</strong>pubs, meaning that males who <strong>pre</strong>-drink <strong>before</strong> a <strong>night</strong> <strong>out</strong>attend venues where people on average are younger. It alsoshowed that students, compared to the employed, were morelikely to report <strong>pre</strong>-drinking <strong>and</strong> that for each time that themales felt intoxicated during the <strong>pre</strong>ceding 30 days, thelikelihood of <strong>pre</strong>-drinking also increased. Females, however,were more likely to <strong>pre</strong>-drink if they were younger, <strong>and</strong>females partying in the military town were more likely to <strong>pre</strong>drinkthan their London counterparts. Frequent intoxicationduring the <strong>pre</strong>ceding 30 days also increased the likelihood offemales’ <strong>pre</strong>-drinking larger quantities <strong>before</strong> a <strong>night</strong> <strong>out</strong>.The Poisson models, shown in Table 3, estimate whethersociodemographic, socioeconomic status <strong>and</strong> <strong>pre</strong>-drinkingmotives influence how many units of alcohol, males <strong>and</strong>females consume when they <strong>pre</strong>-drink <strong>before</strong> an event-