earticle

영어

The purpose of this study was to analyse factors associated with high risk drinking among Korean adult drinkers. The high risk drinking terminology was used to describe the drinking behavior that consumes 7 or more drinks of alcohol for a male, and 5 or more drinks of alcohol for a female. The standard drink was based on the popular Korean alcoholic beverage called "Soju". A telephone survey was conducted in October, 2005. A sample of 1,000 persons (500 males and 500 females) who have had at least one drink during the previous one year was collected. Males were more likely than females to have drinks weekly. About 40.8% of female drinkers were monthly drinkers. The average amount of alcohol consumption in a day was 8.1drinks for males and 3.4 drinks for females. The average drinks doubled for both a male and a female when he/she felt he/she got drunk. About 50.2% of females were monthly high risk drinkers. For male drinkers, 42.4% of them were engaged in high risk drinking weekly.
For the Korean drinkers, major reason to consume alcohol was to maintain social relations(77.5%). On th other hand, the amount of alcohol consumption increases when they drink alcohol on a business occasion(9.7 average drinks for a male). High risk drinking was closely related to business matters. This kind of situation prevent drinkers from moderate drinking or refusal of drinking. Amount of alcohol consumption was significantly and positively related to body mass index (BMI). A regression analysis showed that frequency, amount of drinking, and CAGE were significantly related to high risk drinking. With the variables of BMI and regular physical activity included, the adjusted R square was .603 in the model of the regression analysis.