UC San Diego

Background

Alcohol-related blackouts (ARBs) are reported by ~50% of drinkers. While much is known about the prevalence of ARBs in young adults and their cross-sectional correlates, there are few prospective studies regarding their trajectories over time during mid-adolescence. This paper reports latent trajectory classes of ARBs between age 15 and 19, along with predictors of those patterns.

Methods

Latent class growth analysis (LCGA) was used to evaluate the pattern of occurrence of ARBs across 4 time points for 1,402 drinking adolescents from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Multinomial regression analyses evaluated age-15 demography, substance-related items, externalizing characteristics, and estimated peer substance use as predictors of latent class membership.

Results

ARBs were reported at age 15 in 30% and at age 19 in 74% of these subjects. Four latent trajectory classes were identified: Class 1 (5.1%) reported no blackouts; for Class 2 (29.5%), ARBs rapidly increased with age; for Class 3 (44.9%), blackouts slowly increased; and for Class 4 (20.5%), ARBs were consistently reported. Using Class 2 (rapid increasers) as the reference, predictors of class membership included female sex, higher drinking quantities, smoking, externalizing characteristics, and estimated peer substance involvement (pseudo R(2)  = 0.22).

Conclusions

ARBs were common and repetitive in these young subjects, and predictors of their trajectories over time involved multiple domains representing diverse characteristics.