To estimate associations between age of first drinking (AFD) and alcohol use disorder, nicotine dependence, cannabis dependence, illicit drug dependence, major depression, and anxiety disorder in adulthood, net of a series of covariate factors.
Data were obtained from a longitudinal birth cohort.
Christchurch, New Zealand PARTICIPANTS: The Christchurch Health Development Study (CHDS), a longitudinal study of a cohort born in 1977 and studied to age 35. Analysis samples ranged in size from 1056 (ages 11-13) to 962 (age 35). 50.16% of the total sample was male.
A measure of AFD (ages 5 to 13+ years) was generated using latent class analysis. Outcome measures included: major depression,; anxiety disorders,; alcohol use disorder, nicotine dependence, cannabis dependence, and other illicit drug dependence during the period 15 to 35 years. Covariate factors measured during childhood included family socioeconomic status, family functioning, parental alcohol-related attitudes/behaviours, and individual factors.
Earlier AFD was significantly (p < .05) associated with increased risk of later alcohol use disorders, nicotine dependence, and illicit drug dependence, and was marginally (p < .10) associated with cannabis dependence, but not depression or anxiety disorder. After controlling for covariate factors, the associations between AFD and outcomes were no longer statistically significant (alcohol use disorder: B = -.07, 95% CI: -.22, .08; nicotine dependence: B = -.15, 95% CI: -.34, .04 illicit drug dependence: B = -.29, 95% CI: -.73, .15; cannabis dependence: B = -.05, 95% CI: -.31, .22).
The associations between age of first drinking and later alcohol/drug disorders appear to be accounted for to some degree by other factors related to characteristics of the individual and family during childhood.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 15. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 06 April 2022.
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#40,467
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Outputs of similar age from Addiction
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Altmetric has tracked 32,464,683 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 90th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
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