Methods Sample, ethics and data collection procedures The research ethics committees at the participating universities provided ethical approval for the study. After permission from the course/module tutors, students were provided with self-administered questionnaires to complete during the last http://www.selleckchem.com/products/CP-690550.html 10 minutes of lectures that they were attending. Each questionnaire had a participant information sheet outlining the study aims/objectives. Participation was voluntary and anonymous, no monetary or course credit incentives were provided to participants, and data were confidential and protected. Students were informed that by completing the questionnaire, they agreed to take part in the study. Data was collected in 2007�C2008 at the seven participating universities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

A representative sample of students was sought at all participating universities, and all data were computer-entered at one central site in order to maximize quality assurance and minimize data entry errors. Data used in the current analysis was collected as part of a general Student Health Survey implemented in many European and African countries [25-32]. We employed data from 3,706 undergraduate students at seven universities in England (University of Gloucestershire, Bath Spa University, Oxford Brookes University, University of Chester, Plymouth University); Wales (Swansea University); and Northern Ireland (University of Ulster). Based on the number of completed returned questionnaires, the response rate was about 80%.

Higher proportions of Year 1 students were represented at 3 universities (Chester, Bath Spa, Swansea), while for the rest of the sample Year 2 participants contributed slightly more data, with the exception of Plymouth where it was the Year 3 students. Dacomitinib In this article, we employ the terms ‘university�� and ‘college�� interchangeably to denote higher education institutions, and the average age of entry to university in the UK is about 18 years. Measures Length of time of the last (most recent) drinking occasion (1 item) ��The last time you ‘partied��/socialized, how many hours did you drink alcohol?�� Participants provided the number of hours. As the median and mean were almost the same, (Mean=5.3 hours, Median=5), thus, using mean split the number of hours was then dichotomized into ‘High�� and ‘Low�� length of time of drinking. Amount (number of drinks) of alcohol consumed during the last (most recent) drinking occasion (1 item) ��The last time you ‘partied��/socialized, how many alcoholic drinks did you have? (including alcoholic drinks you possibly had before going out)��.