THE SUBSTANCE SPECIFICITY OF PSYCHOSOCIAL CORRELATES OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, COFFEE AND DRUG-USE BY CZECH WOMEN

The paper reports results of an analysis based on face-to-face intervi ews with two samples of Prague women aged 20-49: (1) a probabilistic s ample (n = 718) of the Prague female Population; and (2) a sample of 1 52 inpatients treated for substance dependence/abuse. Of the inpatient s, 79% were diagnosed as alcohol dependent only, 15% as both alcohol d ependent and drug dependent/abusers, 6% as drug dependent only. With v ery few exceptions, those with drug problems among the inpatients abus ed analgesics, hypnotics, or anxiolytics. With data obtained from the general population sample, two-stage hierarchical logistic regression was run with each of the eleven differently defined substance uses as dependent variables. Four demographic variables were entered as predic tors into the regression equations in the first stage. From the seven potential risk factors of substance use statistically significant pred ictors were entered stepwise in stage two. The major result of the stu dy is the specificity of the pattern of predictors related to each of the eleven considered substance uses. It is also found that in the gen eral population the use of a particular substance is generally uncorre lated with the use of other substances. Alcohol use (even heavy alcoho l use) has no relation to smoking, to the use of analgesics, hypnotics , anxiolytics-and is connected with a specific pattern of predictors.