Adolescent Alcohol Use—K-SADS and
AAIS Determinations
The onset of regular drinking was determined by utilizing both
self-report data (Adolescent Alcohol Involvement Scale [AAIS;
Table 1. Demographic Characteristics and Distribution of
Assessments
Sample characteristics High riska Low risk
Age at entry (mean years 6 SD) 9.85 (2.1) 9.90 (2.0)
Age at last follow-up (mean years 6 SD) 16.19 (1.4) 16.11 (2.0)
% of children in upper two SES categoriesb 47.2 62.7
Cumulative number of assessmentsc
Baseline 74 51
Retest 1 146 102
Retest 2 216 147
Retest 3 280 188
Retest 4 329 224
Retest 5 362 248
Retest 6 379 259
a16.2% of children had an alcoholic mother, 64.9% had an alcoholic father, and
24.3% with neither parent alcoholic had an average of 3.1 first- and second-degree
relatives who were alcoholic.
bThe socioeconomic status (SES; Hollingshead 1975) of the high- and low-risk
children was determined from an average score of both parents. No differences were
found [x2(1) 5 2.90, p 5 .09] when the highest levels (professional/technical) were
contrasted with the lowest (skilled and semiskilled).
cChildren entered the study over a 3-year period (1989 –1991). Therefore, some
children have not completed the fourth, fifth, or sixth retest evaluations. The
average number of evaluations completed by 1998 was 5.1.
Onset of Adolescent Drinking BIOL PSYCHIATRY 267
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Mayer and Filstead 1979]) and a clinician-administered child
psychiatric interview (Schedule for Affective Disorders and
Schizophrenia for School-Aged Children [K-SADS], present and
lifetime) administered to both the child and the parent. Data were
obtained at each evaluation with these two instruments, enabling
us to determine when regular drinking began and problem
use/dependence occurred. Where the two instruments were
discrepant, the earliest date was used.
Every child classified as a drinker was drinking one to two
times a month; if drinking was as infrequent as one to two times
a year, supporting evidence was required indicating that alcohol
was used in sufficient quantities to have a pharmacologic effect
(reported drinking two or more drinks per occasion; reported a
lifetime history of ever having been high, drunk, passed out, or
ill as result of drinking; or experienced memory loss [blackout])
as determined by the AAIS. This ensured that those children who
had only taken a sip of an alcoholic drink would not be
considered drinkers. Among the 60 subjects who drank regularly,
47 reported drinking to the point of being drunk, with some
passing out or having a blackout (impaired memory for events
occurring during a drinking period). The remaining 13 drank to
the point of feeling mildly (“loose, easy feeling”) to moderately
(“moderately high”) intoxicated. Among the subjects who had
begun to drink, the mean quantity per occasion was 3.5 drinks
(median 5 3.0 drinks).