Correlates of problem drinking among young Japanese women: Personality andearly experiences

Problem drinking patterns were measured by the CAGE questionnaire among 90 currently drinking young Japanese women who were recently recruited by a Ja panese company. Problem drinking was examined in terms of personality (temp erament and character as defined by Cloninger) and early life experiences ( perceived parental behavior, parental abusive behavior, being bullied at sc hool, and positive and negative life events experienced before the age of 1 6), Multiple regression analysis revealed that problem drinking could be pr edicted by a set of personality scores, early death of a close friend, and the interaction of the death of a close friend and low explorative excitabi lity (novelty-seeking component 1). This suggests that problem drinking in young women is partly determined by both personality and negative life even ts during childhood, Copyright (C) 1999 by W.B. Saunders Company.