PROCEDURE:
The study consisted of a seven-wave longitudinal family study (2015-2018). A sample of young adolescents (aged 10 to 13 at baseline) and their mothers, were recruited from primary schools from five provinces in the Netherlands. Participants registered for the study via the study website (http://www.vol-onderzoek.nl) and were asked to provide informed consent. The ethics committee of the Faculty of Social Sciences approved the study procedures (ECSW2014-2411-272). Over three years, adolescents completed questionnaires semi-annually and mothers completed online questionnaires annualy. Yearly monetary incentives (€10) were provided to adolescents
PARTICIPANTS:
Of the 913 contacted primary schools, 123 school boards agreed to participate (13.5%). Rea-sons for non-participation included being overburdened (76%) or uninterested in the subject (3%). In other cases, reasons were not provided (21%). Families from 104 of the 123 partici-pating schools opted in to the study, resulting in a total of 765 participating families. Overall, 755 preteens (45.6% boys, Mage=11.27, SD=.56) and 755 mothers (98.7%, Mage=42.57, SD=4.66), who also reported on the alcohol use of 709 fathers, completed the administered questionnaires.
MOTHER QUESTIONNAIRES: Exists of instruments assessing demographics (including SES), parents’ alcohol use (frequency and intensity, alcohol availability at home[22] and alcohol use visible to the child, i.e. exposure[37]) and cognitions (alcohol expectancies and drinking motives[15, 38]).Additional assessed variables concern possible covariates. Being closely linked to drinking onset and alcohol use, it is important to control for these factors when testing the aforementioned hypotheses. Extensive questionnaires will be provided regarding monitoring[47], alcohol-related rules (rules towards underage drinking and alcohol consumption[21, 24, 25], and media exposure [1]), family factors (parent-child relationship quality[23], parenting styles[48], frequency of family activities[49]) and alcohol-specific parenting (alcohol-specific communication and relation[27]).
CHILD QUESTIONNAIRES to be used will be identical to the parent questionnaire, although questions will be adapted to the adolescents’ perspective. TIn addition, several instruments will be added to the adolescent questionnaire: first, questions will be added regarding exposure of alcohol consumption of both parents (if possible), best friend, and peer group. This self-constructed instrument measures the perceived alcohol use (i.e. frequency and intensity) and in which situations alcohol was used. Second, as risky behaviors, such as substance related experimentation, characterize adolescence and may co-occur with alcohol use [1], questions regarding cigarette smoking are included. Third, as characteristics such as impulsivity and conduct disorders are associated with drinking onset [6], the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ) will be added to measure personality characteristics[50]
