Parent Guidance on Alcohol Use for Youth With Chronic Medical Conditions

Abstract

Purpose Youth with chronic medical conditions are vulnerable to unique alcohol-related health consequences, yet there are few prevention strategies targeting this group. Youth with chronic medical conditions parents’ beliefs and provision of alcohol-related guidance have not yet been explored, which limits the development of effective family-based interventions. Methods We evaluated baseline surveys of youth with chronic medical conditions and their parents (n = 268 dyads) enrolled in a randomized controlled trial of a psychoeducational intervention to reduce alcohol use by youth with chronic medical conditions. Surveys evaluated youth alcohol use, parent beliefs about their child’s alcohol use, and parental provision of alcohol guidance, including disease-related and disease-independent (ie, “drinking and driving”) topics. Paired bivariate tests (χ2, Fisher exact) were used to measure associations between youth with chronic medical conditions alcohol use and parent alcohol-related beliefs and provision of alcohol-related guidance. Results In this study of 268 parent-youth dyads, many parents did not provide guidance on disease-specific topics, such as mixing alcohol with medications (47.8%) or risk of flares (37.6%). Furthermore, youth with chronic medical conditions whose parents had expectant beliefs about alcohol use (ie, alcohol use is “inevitable” or “OK with supervision”) were more likely to report alcohol use (all P values <0.05). Discussion These findings suggest parent beliefs may influence youth with chronic medical conditions alcohol use. Proactive, disease-specific education from medical providers to parents of youth with chronic medical conditions may help to reduce adverse consequences of alcohol use in these vulnerable youth.