Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T10:49:15.329Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Alcohol Use, Smoking Habits and the Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire in Adolescent Australian Twins

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

J.L. Hopper*
Affiliation:
The University of Melbourne
V.M. White
Affiliation:
The Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria
G.T. Macaskill
Affiliation:
The University of Melbourne
D.J. Hill
Affiliation:
The Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria
C.A. Clifford
Affiliation:
The University of Tasmania, Australia
*
The University of Melbourne, Faculty of Medicine Epidemiology Unit, 151 Barry Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In 1988, questionnaires were received from 1,400 twin pairs (17% MZM, 23% MZF, 17% DZM, 19% DZF, 24% DZO) aged 11 to 18, registered with the Australian NHMRC Twin Registry. Twins reported independently on themselves and on the perceived behaviour of their parents, siblings and friends. For smoking and for drinking in the previous month, the prevalence was modelled as a logistic function of age, sex, perceived smoking or drinking behaviour of family and friends, and the Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (JEPQ) scales. Strenghts of association were: family behaviour, odds ratio (OR) ≤2; Extraversion and Psychoticism, interquartile OR ≈ 1.6; behaviour of friend, OR ≈ 3 to 6. Twin associations were represented by odds ratios. For smoking they were 16 in MZ and 7 in DZ same-sex pairs, and 3 in DZO pairs. Although the former is consistent with genetic factors determining adolescent smoking behaviour, the reduced association in DZO pairs and strong association with smoking by friends argue to the contrary. For drinking, twin odds ratios were 11 in MZM, MZF and DZF pairs, and 4 in DZM and DZO pairs, consistent with genetic factors determining alcohol use in male but not female, adolescents. Twin odds ratios were not influenced by adjustment for the JEPQ scales; this does not support the hypothesis that genetic factors which determine personality also determine smoking or drinking behaviour during adolescence.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Twin Studies 1992

References

REFERENCES

1. Akaike, H (1974): A new look at the statistical model identification IEEE Transactions of Automatic Control AC-19: 716723.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2. Eaves, LJ, Eysenck, HJ, Martin, NG (1989): Genes, Culture and Personality: An Empirical Approach. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
3. Eysenck, SBG, Eysenck, HJ (1975): Manual of the EPQ (Eysenck Personality Questionnaire). London: University of London Press.Google Scholar
4. Eysenck, HJ (1980): The Causes and Effects of Smoking. London: Maurice Temple Smith.Google Scholar
5. Hannah, MC, Hopper, JL, Mathews, JD (1983): Twin concordance for a binary trait. I. Statistical models illustrated with data on drinking status. Acta Genet Med Gemellol 32:127137.Google ScholarPubMed
6. Hannah, MC, Hopper, JL, Mathews, JD (1985): Twin concordance for a binary trait. II. Nested analysis of ever-smoking and ex-smoking traits and unnested analysis of a “committed smoking” trait. Am J Hum Genet 37:153165.Google ScholarPubMed
7. Hill, D. Willcox, S, Gardner, G, Houston, J (1986): Cigarette and alcohol consumption among Australian secondary schoolchildren in 1984. Melbourne: Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria.Google Scholar
8. Hill, DJ, White, VM, Pain, MD, Gardner, GJ (1990): Tobacco and alcohol use among Australian secondary schoolchildren in 1987. Med J Aust 152:124130.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
9. Hill, DJ, Borland, R (1991): Adults' accounts of onset of regular smoking: influences of school, work, and other settings. Public Health Reports 106:101105.Google ScholarPubMed
10. Holman, DCJ, Armstrong, BK, Arias, LN, Martin, CA, Haton, WM, Hayward, LD, Salmon, MA, Shean, RE, Waddell, VP (1988): The quantification of drug caused morbidity and mortality in Australia. Commonwealth Department of Community Services and Health, Canberra, Australia.Google Scholar
11. Hopper, JL, Hannah, MC, Mathews, JD (1984): Genetic Analysis Workshop II: Pedigree analysis of a binary trait without assuming an underlying liability. Genetic Epidemiology 1:183188.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
12. Hopper, JL, Derrick, PL (1986): A log-linear model for binary pedigree data. Genetic Epidemiology Suppl. 1:7382.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
13. Hopper, JL, Hannah, MC, Macaskill, GT, Mathews, JD (1990): Twin concordance for a binary trait. III. A bivariate analysis of hay fever and asthma. Genetic Epidemiology 7:277289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14. Hopper, JL, Carlin, JB (1992): Familial aggregation of a disease consequent upon correlation between relatives in a risk factor measured on a continuous scale. Am J Epidemiol 1992. (in press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15. Khoury, MJ, Beaty, TH, Liang, K-Y (1988): Can familial aggregation of disease be explained by familial aggregation of environmental risk factors? Am J Epidemiol 127:674683.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
16. Lange, K, Boehnke, M, Weeks, D (1987): Programs for pedigree analysis. Los Angeles: U.C.L.A. Department of Biomathematics.Google Scholar
17. Macaskill, GT, Hopper, JL, White, VM, Hill, VM, Clifford, CA (1992): Analysis of variation in scales of the Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire in Australian adolescent twins (in preparation).Google Scholar
18. Mackenzie, DA (1981): Statistics in Britain 1865-1930: The Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univeristy Press.Google Scholar
19. Peto, J (1980): Genetic predisposition to cancer. In Cairns, J. Lyon, JL, Skolnick, M (eds): Banbury Report 4: Cancer incidence in defined populations. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1980, pp 203213.Google Scholar
20. Young, PA, Eaves, LJ, Eysenck, HJ (1980): Intergenerational stability and change in the causes of variation in personality. J Pers & Ind Diff 1:3555.CrossRefGoogle Scholar