Parents who viewed drinking at home as safer, or who believed drinking only at parties would not affect a young person's development, were more likely to have adolescents who reported alcohol use or binge drinking, according to a study of Brazilian families. The findings describe associations in baseline data, not proof that parental attitudes caused adolescents to drink.
At baseline, 12.3% of adolescents reported lifetime alcohol use and 3.6% reported binge drinking, defined here as consuming five or more alcoholic drinks on one occasion. Parents' views were not uniformly permissive: 10.5% endorsed the idea that it was safer to teach a child to drink at home, while 20.8% said drinking only at parties would not affect adolescent development.
The beliefs tied to drinking
In a multivariable logistic regression, the belief that it was safer to teach a child to drink at home was associated with higher odds of lifetime alcohol use among adolescents. The reported odds ratio, a measure comparing the odds in two groups, was 2.10, with a 95% confidence interval from 1.04 to 3.53 and a p-value of 0.036. It should not be read as meaning that twice as many adolescents drank.
The same pattern appeared for the belief that party-only drinking would not affect adolescent development. It was associated with binge drinking at an odds ratio of 2.61, with a 95% confidence interval from 1.23 to 5.53 and a p-value of 0.012. A separate belief, that adolescent drunkenness was only a passing phase, was also associated with binge drinking, with an odds ratio of 2.37 and a 95% confidence interval from 1.03 to 5.47.
Parental drinking patterns were also associated with adolescent alcohol use. The reported results contain two estimates for the harmful-use or probable-dependence category: an odds ratio of 8.91 in the results narrative and 6.41 in the displayed multivariable results. The latter had a 95% confidence interval from 1.84 to 22.34 and a p-value of 0.004.
The results also stated that 13- and 14-year-olds consumed more alcohol than 11- and 12-year-olds. Because the analysis was cross-sectional, it records beliefs and behavior at baseline and cannot establish which came first.
A baseline snapshot
Researchers used baseline questionnaire data from 859 families with adolescents aged 10 to 14. The families came from 12 Brazilian cities. The work was a baseline cross-sectional analysis nested within a cluster randomized trial of the Strong Families program, and ethics approval was reported under opinion 4,890,815.
Adolescents were asked about lifetime alcohol use and lifetime binge drinking, with binge drinking defined as five or more drinks on one occasion. Parents answered yes-or-no questions about their beliefs and completed the 10-item AUDIT questionnaire, which classified alcohol use as low-risk or abstinent, hazardous, harmful or dependence according to score ranges. The researchers used chi-square tests and logistic regression, reporting odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals.
At baseline, 96.3% of parents reported low-risk alcohol consumption. The analysis nevertheless found an association between the harmful-use or probable-dependence category and adolescent alcohol use.
Why the findings need caution
The authors cautioned that the study covered only 12 Brazilian cities and that the social-support setting, along with the possibility that adolescents felt judged, could have influenced responses. Those limits make it difficult to know how broadly the findings apply.
The study's stated objective was to analyze associations between adolescent alcohol consumption and parental beliefs. Its cross-sectional design means the findings identify relationships at baseline, not causes or the effects of changing parental beliefs.
The authors declared that they had no conflict of interest.
Paper data and sources
Original title: Parental beliefs, initiation of alcohol consumption, and binge drinking among Brazilian adolescents*
Authors: de Sousa G, Galvão P, Valente J et al.
Journal/Repository: Revista latino-americana de enfermagem
Status: Peer-reviewed
First online: 2026-10-19
DOI: Not available
Original paper · Full text