Adolescent Predictors of Binge Drinking in Adulthood: The Association with Psychiatric Disorders in Emerging Adulthood

This study investigates harsh parenting, parental drunkenness, deviant peers, adolescent alcohol use, academic performance, and emotional distress as experienced in adolescence on criteria for behavioral, substance use, affective, or anxiety disorders by age 23. This study also sought to understand how psychiatric disorders were associated with later binge drinking in adulthood (n = 501). Data come from a prospective 28-year longitudinal study of rural Midwestern families. Predictors at Time 1 were assessed in adolescence (15, 16, and 18 years old). Lifetime prevalence of psychiatric disorders was assessed in emerging adulthood (age 23), and binge drinking was self-reported at Time 3 (ages 27, 29, and 31). Results obtained from structure equation modeling and logistic regression using Mplus version 8 indicated deviant peers and low grade point average increased the likelihood of having met criteria for a behavioral disorder by age 23, while deviant peers and adolescent alcohol use increased the likelihood of having met criteria for a substance use disorder. Deviant peers and emotional distress in adolescence increased the likelihood for an affective disorder, while only emotional distress increased the likelihood for an anxiety disorder. Substance use disorder was associated with later binge drinking at ages 27-31. This study offers unique insight into how family, peer, and individual risk factors influence specific psychiatric disorders by age 23. Multiple informants provide a more complex understanding of how these risk factors influence later psychiatric diagnoses, as well as how externalizing disorders are associated with later binge drinking in adulthood.