The etiology of problem drinking in the workplace.
American railroad workers (n = 5804) were surveyed to test whether occupational risk factors specified by Trice and Roman are related to problem drinking. Because sex and age covary strongly with problem drinking and these variables are also likely to covary with occupation, the effects of sex and age were partialled from the correlations in these analyses. Although correlations were without exception small (p less than 0.10) many were significant (p less than 0.05), lending support to the hypothesis that some characteristics of the work situation are likely to cause or to foster problem drinking at least to some degree. As with most correlational studies, it is impossible firmly to establish direction of causality, and the possibility remains that some of the results reported here reflect the gravitation of problem drinkers into jobs where they are less likely to be discovered, in danger, or dangerous.
D000367:Age Factors; D000428:Alcohol Drinking; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D009787:Occupational Medicine; D012306:Risk; D012737:Sex Factors; D012927:Social Control, Informal