[Study on the relationships between cultural orientation, alcohol expectancy, self-efficacy and drinking behavior among senior high school students in two cities of Henan province].
OBJECTIVE
To explore the relationships between alcohol expectancy,cultural orientation, self-efficacy and drinking behavior to provide theoretical support for the development of education programs aimed at preventing alcohol abuse among adolescents.


METHODS
An anonymous quantitative survey of 2756 tenth and eleventh grade students in six senior high schools in Zhengzhou and Xinyang city of Henan province was conducted in November 2005 and data was analyzed by SPSS 13.0 software.


RESULTS
The overall rate of drinking alcohol among participants was 56.5%. The median score of cultural orientation was 3.25 (3.09, 3.42); of alcohol expectancy was 3.02 (2.81, 3.23); and 79.64 (60.36, 93.21) of alcohol self-efficacy. Direct or indirect relationships were found between Chinese traditional cultural orientation, western cultural orientation, alcohol positive expectancy, alcohol negative expectancy, alcohol self-efficacy and alcohol drinking behavior. Lower monthly drinking habit was directly associated with higher self-efficacy and higher negative expectancies,lower positive expectancies and lower western cultural orientation (coefficients = -0.346, -0.282, 0.234 and 0.162 respectively), but not with Chinese cultural orientation variables.


CONCLUSIONS
The current situation of alcohol drinking among the participants was critical. Drinking behavior seemed most affected by drinking beliefs and cultural orientation, suggesting that the development of education programs should focus on students' beliefs.
Qian
Ling
L
National Institute for Health Education, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 100011, China.
Hu
Tao
T
Newman
Ian M
IM
Hou
Pei-Sen
PS
D000293:Adolescent; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000523:psychology*; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000517:prevention & control; D002681:China; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D020377:Self Efficacy; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*