Personality, Life Stress, Alcohol Consumption and Alcohol Problems in Vancouver Couples

AbstractThe relationships between life stress and alcohol use and alcohol problems in males vs. females is not well understood, and the importance of various possible confounding influences such as reporting source and personality on these relationships has never been thoroughly examined. The current paper addresses these important issues by performing secondary analyses on the parent data from a large community based survey (n= 601 couples). Correlational analyses and structural equation modeling (EQS) were employed to examine the bivariate and multivariate relationship patterns between personality, life stress, alcohol consumption and alcohol problems. Results showed: 1) That stress in the family was much more important in predicting alcohol problems than alcohol consumption, 2) Stress was a much better predictor of fathers’ alcohol problems than mothers’ alcohol problems, 3) Addiction prone personality characteristics were associated with higher scores on life stress and alcohol problems in both males and females