Respondents were asked to indicate how frequently they
consumed alcoholic drinks (beer, wine, liquors, alcohol
pops, premix drinks, etc.) in the past 6 months.
A five-point scale was used with categories: 1 = never,2 = one or two
times,3 = monthly,4 = weekly, and 5 = daily (WHO
ASSIST Working Group 2002). Based on the initial distribution, we recoded this scale into a two-level categorical variable: adolescents with zero, one/two times or monthly
alcohol use (no or light consumers) versus adolescents
reporting daily or weekly alcohol use (frequent consumers).