Does excessive alcohol use in teenagers affect their everyday prospective memory?

Objectives

To investigate everyday memory processes in teenagers who drink excessive amounts of alcohol (drinking above the 14/21 units-per-week recommended for females/males respectively), compared with low-dose controls. To consider what implications putative deficits might have upon prevention and potential treatment issue relating to alcohol misuse in teenagers.

Design

Existing groups.

Setting

Testing took place in quiet rooms in colleges in North-East of England.

Participants

86 teenagers studying at colleges in the North-East of England were tested, 55 of whom were excessive drinkers and 31 drank below the ‘safe limits’.

Main Outcome Measures

Self-report measures; Prospective Memory Questionnaire and UEL Drug-Use Questionnaire.

Results

After controlling for tobacco and strategy use (no other between-group differences were found on the non-memory measures), the excessive alcohol group reported more lapses in memory in their long-term and short-term everyday prospective memory functioning, than the low-dose control group.

Conclusions

The findings suggest that teenagers who use excessive amounts of alcohol have selective deficits in their ability to engage in day-to-day activities that rely on memory. Identifying such deficits may help in prevention campaigns and the development of strategies to combat these difficulties may be a useful addition to the knowledge and skills in nurse training.