A recent study examined how drinking motives interact with alcohol use to predict risky sexual behaviors (i.e., not using condoms) among college students. Participants were a mostly White, mostly female sample of U.S. undergraduate students aged 18 to 24 years (n = 98) who reported both past-month alcohol use and lifetime penetrative sex and completed weekly questionnaires on their alcohol consumption, drinking motives, and risky sexual behaviors. The authors used drinking motive categories identified by Cooper, et al. (1994): Social, enhancement, coping, and conformity. Participants provided data on the above measures for a final sample 403 drinking episodes. Data were analyzed using Generalized Estimating Equations with a model for each drinking motive. Results showed participants consumed an average of 5.38 drinks per occasion. Risky sexual behaviors, which occurred on 22.2% of days, were more likely to occur during drinking days than on non-drinking days. The most commonly reported motive for drinking was social, closely followed by enhancement. Very few participants reported drinking to cope. For the social drinking motives model, the authors found participants were 10.4% more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior with every one-unit increase in their typical social motives on a given day. There was a significant interaction between enhancement motives and quantity of alcohol consumed: Individuals with strong enhancement motives had greater odds of engaging in risky sex, regardless of their level of alcohol consumption, but among participants with weaker enhancement motives, these odds depended on the quantity of alcohol consumed. The coping drinking motives model found a marginally significant positive relationship between level of alcohol consumption and odds of engaging in risky sex, but no significant main effect of coping motives. Results of the conformity drinking motives model were similar: A marginally significant effect for level of alcohol consumption on odds of engaging in risky sex, but no significant main effect of conformity motives.
Take away: This study found only marginally significant effects of alcohol use on risky sex for two of the four drinking motives models. The level of alcohol consumed on drinking occasions may only play a role in predicting risky sex when college students are drinking for certain reasons.