Abstract
Mental well-being and excessive alcohol consumption each represent a significant public health concern, and evidence suggests an association between them. Furthermore, drinking motivations associated with harmful drinking have been studied, but not systematically in the UK population. A representative sample of 6174 UK adults aged 18–75 were surveyed online. Low risk drinkers were found to have higher mental well-being than hazardous, harmful, and, probable, dependence drinkers. Using a hierarchical multiple regression analysis, it was found that just over 5% of the variance in well-being scores was accounted for by the level of harmful drinking and drinking motivation; the most significant contribution was drinking to cope. Among people drinking to cope, those drinking in more harmful ways were statistically significantly more likely to have low well-being compared to less harmful drinkers. In the UK adult population there is a clear association between poor mental well-being and harmful drinking. Furthermore, coping was a significant motivation to drink for many with low mental well-being. While mental well-being was found to be directly linked with levels of harmful drinking, the motivation for drinking was a stronger predictor of mental well-being.
Highlights
With alcohol being a leading cause of death worldwide it is a considerable public health concern [1], and there is clear evidence of a link between alcohol misuse and mental health and well-being within a variety of different populations [2,3,4,5,6]
Whilst 14.7% of low risk drinkers have low mental well-being, this rises to 27.3% among probable dependence drinkers
The findings reveal a clear association between poor well-being and harmful drinking
Summary
With alcohol being a leading cause of death worldwide it is a considerable public health concern [1], and there is clear evidence of a link between alcohol misuse and mental health and well-being within a variety of different populations [2,3,4,5,6]. The term “mental well-being” denotes positive mental health and emotional well-being [12]. In this paper, we adopt a definition of mental well-being focusing partly on self-realization and defining it in terms of the degree to which a person is fully functioning, and partly regarding pleasure attainment (or happiness) and pain avoidance. These are known, respectively, as eudaimonic and hedonic aspects of mental well-being [13,14]. Mental well-being is increasingly recognized, along with other non-clinical terms, such as “happiness” [15], as being significant in the consideration of a population’s health and well-being [16], and it is of particular interest to behaviour change efforts aiming to improve lifestyles in a population [17]
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