Drinking motives in clinical and general populations

Aims: This paper had three aims: (1) to validate a Spanish adaptation of the Modified Drinking Motives Questionnaire-Revised (M DMQ-R), (2) to explore the relationship of each drinking motive with different patterns of alcohol use, and (3) to compare the drinking motives of moderate drinkers, heavy drinkers, and alcohol abusing/dependent individuals. Methods: Two studies were carried out. In Study 1, a sample of 488 participants completed the M DMQ-R and a self-report scale of alcohol consumption in order to study the factor structure and different indices of reliability and validity of the Spanish M DMQ-R. In Study 2, we compared the drinking motives of moderate and heavy drinkers from Study 1 and an additional sample of 59 clinical drinkers. Results: The M DMQ-R demonstrated sound reliability and validity indices. Coping-with-anxiety, social, and enhancement motives predicted higher alcohol use on weekends, but only coping-with-anxiety and social motives were related to consumption on weekdays. Furthermore, moderate drinkers had the lowest scores for all motives, whereas alcohol-dependent participants obtained the highest scores for negative reinforcement drinking motives. Conclusion: The Spanish M DMQ-R is a reliable and valid measure of drinking motives and has potential for assisting with treatment planning for problem drinkersFunding for this study was provided by the Spanish Ministry of Science Grant PSI2008-05988, the Spanish Ministry of Health (PNSD 2009) and the Fundació Caixa-Castelló Bancaixa Grant E-2009-05 and E-2010-1