News di Alcologia

L'alcolismo si scopre crescendo
di Ilaria Durante

L'analisi dei comportamenti dei bambini durante i primi cinque anni della loro vita, può dare significative informazioni sull'eventuale uso o abuso di alcolici nella fase dell'adolescenza. Un recente studio, condotto da Danielle Dick, psicologa della Virginia Commonwealth University, ha esaminato l'atteggiamento di migliaia di bambini inglesi, grazie alle informazioni fornite dai genitori. Gli aspetti dell'infanzia che sono risultati connessi con la predisposizione al consumo di alcolici sono l'instabilità emotiva e la conseguente asocialità da un lato, e la socievolezza tendente a esasperazione dell'indole estroversa dall'altro. Il gruppo di ricerca ha inoltre tenuto sotto controllo i propri test anche nell'età adulta, per cercare di capire gli effetti a lungo termine dell'analisi condotta

Adolescent Alcohol Use is Predicted by Childhood Temperament Factors Before Age 5, with Mediation Through Personality and Peers
Danielle M. Dick1, Fazil Aliev, Shawn J. Latendresse, Matt Hickman, Jon Heron, John Macleod, Carol Joinson, Barbara Maughan, Glyn Lewis, Kenneth S. Kendler

Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research
DOI: 10.1111/acer.12206

Background
Very few studies chart developmental pathways from early childhood to adolescent alcohol-related outcomes. We test whether measures of temperament collected from mothers at multiple assessments from 6 months through 5 years predict alcohol-related outcomes in mid-adolescence, the developmental pathways that mediate these effects, and whether there are gender differences in pathways of risk.

Methods
Structural models were fit to longitudinal data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, an epidemiological sample of pregnant women with delivery dates between April 1991 and December 1992, with children followed longitudinally. Temperamental characteristics were assessed at 6 time points from 6 to 69 months of age. Alcohol use and problems were assessed at age 15.5. Analyses here utilize data from 6,504 boys and 6,143 girls.

Results
Childhood temperament prior to age 5 predicted adolescent alcohol use and problems at age 15.5 years, even after controlling for socio-demographic factors and parental alcohol problems. In both boys and girls, 2 largely uncorrelated and distinct temperament styles-children who were rated as having consistent emotional and conduct difficulties through age 5, and children who were rated as consistently sociable through age 5-both showed elevated rates of alcohol problems at age 15.5, but via different mediational pathways. In both genders, the association between emotional and conduct difficulties and alcohol problems was mediated through reduced conscientiousness and lower emotional stability. The association between sociability and alcohol problems was mediated through increased extraversion and sensation-seeking for both genders. Boys also showed mediation for sociability and alcohol outcomes through friendship characteristics, and girls through lower conscientiousness and reduced emotional stability.

Conclusions
Our findings support multiple pathways to alcohol consumption and problems in adolescence. Some of these pathways are shared in boys and girls, while other risk factors are more salient in one gender or the other.

(Articolo pubblicato dal CUFRAD sul sito www.alcolnews.it)