Sports participation moderates the risk of family-specific negative life events on alcohol use among adolescents: Evidence from the longitudinal MyLife study

Cagdas Türkmen; Geir Scott Brunborg; Ingunn Olea Lund; Falk Kiefer; Sabine Vollstädt-Klein; Jasmina Burdzovic Andreas

doi:10.1016/j.addbeh.2024.108041

Sports participation moderates the risk of family-specific negative life events on alcohol use among adolescents: Evidence from the longitudinal MyLife study

Addict Behav. 2024 Apr 17:155:108041. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2024.108041. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Cagdas Türkmen¹, Geir Scott Brunborg², Ingunn Olea Lund³, Falk Kiefer⁴, Sabine Vollstädt-Klein⁴, Jasmina Burdzovic Andreas⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Addictive Behaviour and Addiction Medicine, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany. Electronic address: cagdas.tuerkmen@zi-mannheim.de.
² Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Drugs, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway; Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
³ Centre for Genetic Epidemiology and Mental Health (PsychGen Centre), Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway; Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
⁴ Department of Addictive Behaviour and Addiction Medicine, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany; Mannheim Centre for Translational Neurosciences, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany.
⁵ Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Drugs, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway; Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.

PMID: 38652974
DOI: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2024.108041

Abstract

Negative life events (NLE) have been associated with increased alcohol use (AU) during adolescence. However, whether this risk association may be modified by leisure activities such as sports participation (SP) remains poorly understood. This study examined whether accumulated family-specific NLE in particular were associated with greater AU, and if so, whether SP moderated this association to reduce AU among high-NLE adolescents. We examined five annual assessments from a nationwide cohort of 3,422 Norwegian adolescents (13-15 year-olds; 55.3 % girls at baseline) who participated in the MyLife study. At each assessment, adolescents reported their AU on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test-Concise (AUDIT-C), the number of family-specific NLE in the past 12 months, SP days in the past 30 days, and multiple sociodemographic and individual-level characteristics (covariates). Changes over time in AU as a function of NLE, SP, and their interaction (NLExSP) were examined with a set of partially nested growth curve models. AU increased non-linearly over time in all models. The fully adjusted best-fitting model showed significant NLExSP interactions (estimate = -0.013, 95% CI [-0.02, -0.006]), such that the initial AUDIT-C scores were lower for high-NLE adolescents with high SP and greater for high-NLE adolescents with low SP. Further, linear increases in AU over time were marginally steeper for high-NLE adolescents with high SP (NLExSPxTime estimate = 0.034, 95% CI [-0.0002, 0.007]). Thus, SP appeared to have a protective role in reducing AU for high-NLE youth primarily during middle school years. Prevention efforts thus may utilize organized sports for youth facing family-specific NLE as a resource early on.

Keywords: Adolescence; Alcohol use; Cohort; Family-specific negative life events; Longitudinal study; Sports participation.