Drinkers in the micro-social environment of the inhabitants of Ukraine. Age and gender characteristics

Abstract

The purpose of the work is to determine in the Ukrainian society the scale of harm inflicted by drinkers to other persons, as well as the gender and age characteristics of this harm. In four regions of Ukraine (Kharkiv, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia regions, Kyiv), during 2018-2020, 1,742 people were examined from three qualitatively different comparison groups: patients with alcohol dependence (393 people); their healthy relatives (274 people) and representatives of the general population (1075 people). The main research tool was the questionnaire of the international research consortium GENAHTO (Gender, Alcohol, and Harms to Others). It was shown that, in general, drinkers are present in the microsocial environment of 27.62 % of the surveyed healthy respondents. Extrapolation of this indicator to the entire population of Ukraine suggests that the total number of people who suffer in one way or another due to the drinkers in their environment is about 11.6 million people. In addition, the drinkers frequency in the environment of respondents can be used to determine the real number of people with alcohol problems in our country. Preliminary calculations indicate that this number is from 1.5 to 2.2 million people. The drinkers frequency in the environment of the respondents significantly depends on the age of the latter. The highest values of this indicator are characteristic of the respondents in the age category 40—59 years old” (31.43 % for men and 41.27 % for women). The subjective perception of harm from drinkers in the environment grows steadily with increasing age of the respondents, while this growth is most pronounced in women.