한국 여대생의 음주에서 충동성과 부정적 평가에 대한 두려움의 연관성

The Relationship of Impulsivity and Fear of Negative Evaluation to Alcohol Use in the College Women

Objective：Recently the prevalence of pathological drinking behavior in women is increasing, but the psychological characteristics of alcohol consumption in young women have rarely been investigated. In this study, the authors investigated the relationships between alcohol use severity, impulsivity, social dis-tress and fear of negative evaluation. Methods：The subjects, 157 college women, were assessed with the Korean Alcohol Use Dis-orders Identification Test (AUDIT-K), the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS), the Korean Social Avoidance & Distress (K-SAD) and Korean Fear Of Negative Evaluation (K-FNE) tests. We designated a cutoff score of twelve or above for the AUDIT-K as the criterion for the presence of problem drinking. The correlations between each psychological variable (BIS, K-SAD, K-FNE) and alcohol use severity were investigated. Results：The results of this study were as follows：1) The percentage of drinking within the preceding one-year period was 86.4% and the percentage of problem drinkers was 24.2% among the 157 subjects. 2) The problem drinkers showed statistically significant higher mean scores on the BIS than the non-problem drinkers. The problem drinkers showed statistically significant higher mean scores on the K-FNE than the non- problem drinkers, but there was no significant difference between these groups in the K-SAD. 3) The AUDIT-K was positively correlated with BIS and K-FNE, but there was no correlation with the K-SAD. 4) Impulsivity and fear of negative evaluation were positively correlated with problem drinking. Problem drinking was significantly increased when negative evaluation or impulsivity was increased. Conclusion： Women with drinking problems were more impulsive and more fearful of negative evaluation than women without drinking problems. Impulsivity and fear of negative evaluation were positively correlated with drinking. These results suggest that it is necessary to give more attention to psychiatric conditions of problem drinking college women and to evaluate psychosocial problems related with alcohol consumption.