Correlates of alcohol use and drunkenness among secondary school students in Nigeria

Background: Alcohol is the most used substance among adolescents in Nigeria. Studies conducted among secondary school adolescents found a worrisome prevalence of drinking. Moreover, according to WHO report on alcohol and health, Nigeria ranks second for the heavy episodic drinking among senior secondary school adolescents in Africa. While risk factors for alcohol use among adolescents are well documented in Europe and USA, they received less attention in African countries. This study aimed to investigate the factors that contribute to drinking and drunkenness episodes among secondary school adolescents across all six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. Methods: The survey involved 32 secondary schools and 4,078 pupils of six geo-political zones (South-South, South-West, South-East, North-Centre, North-West and North-East) and two metropolitan cities (Abuja and Lagos) between December 2015 and January 2016. Socio-demographic characteristics, parental alcohol use and permissiveness, friends' alcohol use, risk perceptions and positive beliefs indicator were investigated as correlates of lifetime drinking and drunkenness through multilevel logistic regression models. Results: The prevalence of lifetime drinking was 34.0%, while the prevalence of drunkenness episodes was 13.4%. Results of logistic regression models showed that male gender, living in family structure different from both parents’ families, parental and friends’ alcohol use, parental permissiveness to drink, risk perceptions and beliefs were associated with an increased probability of both drinking and getting drunk. Having more cars was only related with the probability of drinking but not with that of getting drunk. Conclusion: Since young population is dominant in Nigeria, greater investment in adolescents’ well-being by reducing the factors that contribute to drinking and drunkenness should be prioritized.