Effects of Alcohol on College Athletes Wins Young Investigator Award

When University of Missouri-Kansas City researchers and doctors Drew W. Glover and Margaret E. Gibson set out to conduct their second year of research on college athletes and alcohol consumption, they thought they would find an association between alcohol use or abuse and a higher rate of missed practices and games. They wanted to develop an argument to dissuade athletes from drinking, but the data showed no association.

“We know teenagers and college-aged students seek immediate rewards, don’t always consider or think about risks, and aren’t necessarily thinking about the future, such as what jobs they will have, ” Gibson said. “The thought was, ‘Well, they enjoy drinking. There are some immediate rewards to it, but are there also some risks, some negative effects that they are not noticing?’ We were thinking we would find something that would impact them in their thoughts about whether they should consume alcohol or not.”

Despite not being able to prove their hypothesis, they may be on to something. The research team was awarded the Harry Galanty Young Investigator Award at the recent Annual Meeting of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine. Their research titled “A Survey of Alcohol Use and Effects on College Athletes Year 2, ” is an early attempt to glean more information about the best ways to identify and survey college-age students who consume alcohol and who may experience mental health concerns. “There were 160 abstracts submitted and this was the only one that dealt with drug and alcohol use issues in college athletes, which is obviously a big issue, ” said Gibson. “People were very appreciative of us doing this.”

Glover and Gibson took two popular alcohol screening surveys—The AUDIT-C and the CAGE questionnaire—and put them together in an anonymous survey of 318 athletes across a variety of sports. “We found the AUDIT-C was better able to identify problem drinking than the CAGE questionnaire, as was found in the general college-age population, but it hadn’t been done in the athletic population, ” Gibson said. They also added the PHQ-2 Depression Screen to the survey at the request of colleagues. Athletes were asked to track their own attendance at practices and games.

Findings Surprise and Don’t Match Other Research

The researchers said their findings were surprising and didn’t always align with other research that had been done. They found that athletes with athletic scholarships admit to consuming more alcohol than those with academic scholarships, but they are not sure why. “It could be because those with academic scholarships are more focused on their studies, ” said Gibson. “Maybe they are thinking more about their futures.”

“College athletes have so little time, 20 hours a week dedicated to their sport, ” added Glover. “Those with academic scholarships may have higher standards they need to meet to keep that scholarship, so they may be utilizing their time differently to study more. That’s all speculation though.”

Their screening for depression found no correlation. “This was surprising as well, because when you think of alcohol abuse, you also think of the mental health side, ” said Glover. “You would think there’s a correlation there since it’s been widely shown in many other studies.”

Another data piece was equally baffling. The percentage of students who admitted to drinking was way below the national average. “For years, the NCAA [National Collegiate Athletic Association] `has anonymously surveyed athletes about their alcohol consumption, and for the past couple of years 81 percent of them have said they drink alcohol, ” Gibson said. “In our survey, 67 percent admitted to drinking.”

Are they lying? “We do have some concerns about doing an anonymous survey, ” Glover said. “We have no idea how honest they are. You would expect they would be since it is anonymous and we made every effort to make them feel safe in their reporting, but if you compared it to the NCAA survey, which is also fairly anonymous, you’d think it would be similar.”

It’s a Gray Area in Research

Glover and Gibson say they are exploring a gray area in treating athletes, which is important. “The conversation that is happening right now in sports medicine is about both alcohol use and mental health screening and how much of that we should be doing.” Gibson said. “Most people are in agreement that we should be doing it, but there is discussion on how we should do it. That’s why a study like this is particularly useful.”

Could their findings aid in designing a survey going forward for college use? “Yes, I think they can at least be used to move the conversation forward, ” Glover said. “We are trying to find ways to best support our athletes in their mental health and find other ways to support them than just taking care of their injuries.”

Gibson said the research supports the NCAA’s initiative to address mental health issues. “The NCAA gives some best practices about screening for mental health, but there isn’t a lot of research that says which is the best way or tools to go about it. This study and future studies can identify effective ways for screening college athletes.”

Glover said conference peers wanted to see more correlations that looked at the sport the athlete was playing, whether they were surveyed in season or out of season, or whether they were in starter or non-starter positions.

“One of the challenges in doing this research is that people are always asking us to ask the athletes this or that, ” Gibson said. “We purposely kept the survey short so athletes would be willing to participate in it without too much extra time. If you get into too many questions, they can get in the habit of just circling answers without really reading the questions. We wanted to get the information that could impact their health in the future, but not have too many questions.”

Both Glover and Gibson plan to continue their research to address some of the bigger substantive issues that were raised regarding participant honesty and depression screening, for starters. “We want to set the athletes up for success—from not only a musculoskeletal standpoint, but also a mental health standpoint, ” said Glover. “We need to treat the whole athlete and take the long-term view.”