Studies in Europe, the USA and Australia haveshown a high prevalence of alcohol use disorders, alcohol dependence, stress, anxiety,eating disorders and depression among university students compared to their non-university peers. Additionally, there is substantial research that demonstrates that harmful and hazardous alcohol consumption also contributes to arange of mental health problems and disorders including depression, anxiety, and stress or psychological distress. The most common harms experienced by students are vomiting, aggression, missing classes, underachievement, financial problems, and memory loss. Short-term harms are found to be high among young university students as a result of episodic drinking. Harmful levels of alcohol consumption are associated with increased risk of both long and short-term health effects.
Similarly, another Australian university found that approximately 50% of young students drank to intoxication on one or more days per week. In addition, 48% of students aged 17–24 years exceeded the threshold for acute alcohol-related harm at least once in the last four weeks of the survey.
The Tertiary Health Research Intervention study (THRIVE) found 90% of university students (17–24 years old) consumed alcohol in the last 12 months of the study with average volumes for a typical drinking session being 5.09 standard drinks for females and 8.68 for males. For example, alcohol advertising, alcohol related events at universities and pressure to belong compounded by new independence are some of the attributing factors to risky drinking behaviours.
The environment, both psychological and physical, also influences alcohol consumption. Additionally, young students may be influenced by a range of developmental, environmental, and lifestyle changes which may be associated with ‘rites of passage’. The university environment provides a unique social context that often promotes excessive drinking. Young university students have been found to experience greater levels of alcohol-related harm compared to their non-university attending peers. Twenty-one percent of young Australians aged 18–24 have been found to engage in risky drinking and this behaviour puts them at greater risk of short and long-term harms associated with alcohol consumption. For many young Australians, alcohol plays an important role in their social life. Interested researchers may reach out to the Human Research Ethics Committee ( or the chair person Human Research ethics Committee, Professor Peter O' Leary (phone: +61892661855 email The authors received no specific funding for this work.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interest exist.Īlcohol-related harm and mental health problems are among the leading public health issues in today’s society. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: Data are hosted by Curtin University survey office through The Human research ethics committee for researchers who meet the criteria for access to confidential data. Received: DecemAccepted: Published: June 28, 2017Ĭopyright: © 2017 Tembo et al. Dalby, University of Westminster, UNITED KINGDOM Validated instruments were used to collected data on levels of alcohol consumption, mental health, and academic performance.Ĭitation: Tembo C, Burns S, Kalembo F (2017) The association between levels of alcohol consumption and mental health problems and academic performance among young university students. Data were collected by trained research assistants. A further 628 students were randomly recruited through face to face intercept survey during the campus market days. The email invitations coincided with the release of semester results to increase the likelihood of students accessing their emails. Students were invited to participate in the study through their student email address. Data were collected through an online survey. A total of 2518 undergraduate students aged 18 to 24 years who were enrolled internally at Curtin University Bentley campus were randomly recruited. Included in the study were only students who were within the age of 18–24, undergraduate, and internally enrolled at the main campus. Participants were randomly drawn from a cross sectional sample of 6000 undergraduate students. This study used a quantitative cross-sectional design using data that were collected in 2014 as part of the Youth Alcohol Project (YAP).
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