Korean J Fam Pract 2020; 10(3): 231-237  https://doi.org/10.21215/kjfp.2020.10.3.231
Related Factors of Alcohol-Induced Blackout among University Student
Kwan-Woo Park, Min-Sun Kim, Hea-Jin Lee, Woo-Joo Park, Mi-Kyeong Oh*
Department of Family Medicine, Gangneung Asan Hospital, Gangneung, Korea
Mi-Kyeong Oh
Tel: +82-33-610-3325, Fax: +82-33-641-8130
E-mail: omk@gnah.co.kr
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3602-9588
Received: August 7, 2019; Revised: March 4, 2020; Accepted: March 11, 2020; Published online: June 20, 2020.
© The Korean Academy of Family Medicine. All rights reserved.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background: Irresponsible alcohol consumption by university students in our country continues to increase regardless of the sex; it also causes various problems. The blackouts experienced by the students cause social issues, and increased rates of alcohol-based dementia and alcohol use disorder. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the factors related to alcohol-induced blackouts experienced by university students.
Methods: We used a structured questionnaire. Overall, 1,325 male and female attending four of the four-year universities in Gangwon-do were included in this study. Their living and drinking conditions, family’s drinking capacity, sleep, depression, anxiety and stress were investigated and the realtionship with the experience of blackout was investigated using the SPSS 24.0 statistical software.
Results: Based on the alcohol consumption habits, 360 male (42.3%) and 221 female (46.6%) experienced blackouts. Alcohol use disorder was found in Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test - Korean revised version (AUDIT-K), 330 male (38.8%) and 265 female (55.9%). We found that the older male and female, the more they lived alone, the more frequently they drink alcohol in the family, the more they drink, and the more blackout experience, the more frequently they experience blackout (P<0.05). We also showed that the experience of blackout increased statistically significantly with the increase in difficulty to control alcohol consumption (P<0.05). Regarding the relationship between psychological aspects and blackouts, AUDIT-K scores and PHQ-9 scores were significantly higher in both male and female when they frequently experienced blackouts (P<0.05).
Conclusion: We found that >40% of the university students experienced blackouts; female experienced blackouts more frequently than male. The blackouts were related to lifestyle, family drinking, problem drinking and depression in both male and female.
Keywords: Blackout; Problem Drinking; Sleep; Depression; Anxiety; Stress
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