Study of structural factors and patterns of alcohol consumption in schooled adolescents
The nurse of the Hospital El Bierzo, teacher of the Campus of Ponferrada and member of the research group SALBIS, Enedina Quiroga Sánchez, has obtained outstanding Cum Laude in the qualification of her doctoral thesis presented by the School of Doctorate of the University of León, under the program of Biomedicine. She made her public defense last December 14, at the Campus of Ponferrada, supervised by Dr. Pilar Marqués and Dr. Vicente Martin, with the title “Study of structural factors and patterns of alcohol consumption in schooled adolescents”, being the first doctoral thesis defended by a nurse in this Campus.
Enedina Quiroga developed her study in the educational field, collecting a sample of 195 teenagers between 16-18 years of age from 4 IES of the region of El Bierzo. Using the Social Network Analysis (SNA) methodology, Enedina Quiroga investigated the structural pattern that the adolescent followed to consume alcohol. The study addresses the importance of networked contacts in the acquisition of harmful habits such as alcohol consumption. Despite the fact that the World Health Organization shows a decrease in alcohol consumption levels, this continues to be an important public health problem. The adolescent is especially vulnerable in the acquisition of risk behaviors, hence the importance of the study of contacts in the habit of drinking.
The results obtained show that the most friends are not the ones who encourage you to drink, since true friends prevent you from the consequences. The adolescent consumer has a dense network with many contacts, but with other adolescents with whom he maintains minimum levels of friendship. In this scenario he is more like a leader, nobody reproaches him, and through consumption he gains leadership.
This finding contradicts the fact that the act of drinking is carried out with close friends, which can be explained in the rejection that is generated, since it is not easy to maintain a relationship of true friendship with a person who consumes alcohol, and more at risk margins, given that this type of friendship establishes certain limits on actions, so it does not encourage the adolescent’s behavior towards consumption.
Teenagers are characterized by being very influenced by the social environment in which they are immersed, so that the adolescent influences their contacts and these in turn on the adolescent. Knowing the pattern of adolescent relationships is a key point for the design of preventive strategies. Nurses play a crucial role in promoting healthy habits and preventing alcohol consumption. The knowledge of the individual’s social network through the ARS allows nurses to benefit from a tool with which to visualise behaviour patterns and apply this information to health promotion programmes and prevention strategies.
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