Dataset Information

Heaviness of Alcohol Use, Alcohol Problems, and Subjective Intoxication Predict Discrepant Drinking Reports in Daily Life.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Self-reported consumption is pervasive in alcohol research, though retrospective recall bias is a concern. Fine-grained methods are designed to limit retrospection; yet, discrepancies can arise when comparing responses on fine-grained surveys with responses to retrospective surveys across weeks or months. Many fine-grained studies use both repeated daily surveys (RDS) and end-of-day (EOD) summaries, but little research has examined whether these survey types are consistent. The purpose of this study was to quantify the magnitude and directionality of discrepancy between EOD summaries and RDS and identify alcohol-related predictors of discrepancy.

Methods

As a part of a larger study, college student alcohol and cannabis users (N = 341; 53% women; M_age = 19.79 years) were recruited to complete 56 days of data collection, including 5 daily assessments of their substance use and related constructs, one of which included an EOD summary of the previous day. Generalized linear mixed-effects models were used to examine between- and within-person predictors of a 5-category, discrepancy outcome: no discrepancy, low discrepancy where RDS < EOD, low discrepancy where EOD < RDS, high discrepancy where RDS < EOD, and high discrepancy where EOD < RDS.

Results

Discrepancies between EOD and RDS were observed in both directions. Alcohol problems predicted more alcohol consumption reported on the EOD survey than across RDS. Within-person alcohol quantity and hourly rate of consumption were most strongly related to less alcohol consumption reported on the EOD survey. Between- and within-person peak subjective intoxication and within-person liquor consumption were associated with discrepancies in both directions.

Conclusions

Surveys requiring more retrospection may overestimate alcohol consumption in problematic drinkers and underestimate consumption on days where more alcohol is consumed than typical. Evidence also suggests that greater day-to-day instability in alcohol behavior is linked to less consistent reporting overall. More research is needed to discern factors contributing to inconsistent reporting on fine-grained surveys to maximize the validity of reports.

SUBMITTER: Stevens AK

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7572532 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundMotivational models of alcohol use suggest that individual differences in sensitivity to the acute subjective effects of alcohol play an important role in motivational pathways to alcohol use. However, few studies have examined the link between drinking motives and subjective responses to alcohol. This study investigated the associations of coping and enhancement drinking motives with subjective stimulant and sedative effects during a laboratory alcohol administration session. We also examined whether stimulation and sedation following alcohol administration mediated the relationships between drinking motives and postalcohol ratings of alcohol wanting and liking.MethodsHeavy episodic drinkers (n = 147, ages 19 to 25) at 2 sites participated in an intravenous alcohol administration session in which blood alcohol concentration was raised to a target of 80 mg% over 20 minutes. Participants completed measures of stimulation and sedation at baseline and 20 minutes and also rated alcohol liking and wanting at 20 minutes. Drinking motives and alcohol use were assessed during a previous laboratory visit.ResultsA path analysis controlling for baseline stimulation and sedation showed that enhancement motives were positively associated with postalcohol stimulation and negatively associated with postalcohol sedation. In contrast, coping motives were positively associated with postalcohol sedation. In turn, postalcohol stimulation, but not sedation, was associated with alcohol wanting and liking. Further, indirect pathways from enhancement motives to postalcohol wanting and liking mediated through postalcohol stimulation were statistically significant. Coping motives, on the other hand, were directly associated with increased postalcohol wanting and liking.ConclusionsThe results demonstrate that drinking motives are linked with individual differences in sensitivity to the effects of alcohol, which may serve as a mechanism underlying alcohol reinforcement and the motivation to consume more alcohol during a drinking episode.

Project description:BackgroundAlcohol addiction develops through a series of stages, and mechanistic studies are needed to understand the transition from initial drug use to sustained controlled alcohol consumption followed by abuse and physical dependence. The focus of this study was to examine the effects of voluntary alcohol consumption on brain gene expression profiles using a mouse model of binge drinking. The main goal was to identify alcohol-responsive genes and functional categories after a single episode of drinking to intoxication.MethodsWe used a modification of a "Drinking In the Dark" (DID) procedure (Rhodes et al., 2005) that allows mice to experience physiologically relevant amounts of alcohol in a non-stressful environment and also allows for detection of alcohol-sensitive molecular changes in a dose-dependent manner. C57BL/6J male mice were exposed to either 20% ethanol solution or water (single bottle) starting 3 hours after lights off for 4 hours and brains were harvested immediately after the drinking session. cDNA microarrays were used to assess the effects of voluntary drinking on global gene expression in 6 brain regions. We employed three statistical approaches to analyze microarray data.ResultsA commonly used approach that applies a strict statistical threshold identified the eight top statistically significant genes whose expression was significantly correlated with blood ethanol concentration (BEC) in one of the brain regions. We then used a systems network approach to examine brain region-specific transcriptomes and identify modules of co-expressed (correlated) genes. In each brain region, we identified alcohol-responsive modules, i.e., modules significantly enriched for genes whose expression was correlated with BEC. A functional over-representation analysis was then applied to examine the organizing principles of alcohol-responsive modules. Genes were clustered into modules according to their roles in different physiological processes, functional groups, and cell types, including blood circulation, signal transduction, cell-cell communication, and striatal neurons. Finally, a meta-analysis across all brain regions suggested a global role of increasing alcohol dose in coordination of brain blood circulation and reaction of astrocytes.ConclusionsThis study showed that acute drinking resulted in small but consistent changes in brain gene expression which occurred in a dose-dependent manner. We identified both general and region-specific changes, some of which represent adaptive changes in response to increasing alcohol dose, which may play a role in alcohol-related behaviours, such as tolerance and consumption. Our systems approach allowed us to estimate the functional values of individual genes in the context of their genetic networks and formulate new refined hypotheses. An integrative analysis including other alcohol studies suggested several top candidates for functional validation, including Mt2, Gstm1, Scn4b, Prkcz, and Park7.