Abstract
Objective: To identify the risk factors related to the association between social anxiety disorder and alcohol use in adolescents.
Source of data: The PICO research strategy was used to perform a systematic review in Medline, LILACS, Pubmed, IBECS and Cochrane Library databases. DeCS/MeSH: Phobic Disorders, Adolescent, Behavior, Ethanol, Risk Factors, and the Boolean operator “AND” were used. Inclusion criteria were: cross-sectional, prospective/retrospective cohort, and case-control studies, carried out in adolescents (10–19 years), original articles on social anxiety disorder and alcohol use published between 2010 and 2015. Studies that did not report the terms “anxiety disorder” and “alcohol use” in the title and abstract were excluded.
Synthesis of data: 409 articles were retrieved; after the exclusion of 277 repeated articles, the following were eligible: 94 in MEDLINE, 68 in Pubmed, 12 in IBCS, and three in LILACS. Titles and abstracts were independently read by two examiners, which resulted in the selection of eight articles for the analysis. Risk factors associated to the two disorders were female gender, age, peer approval and affective problems for alcohol use, confrontation situations and/or compliance reasons, frequency of alcohol use, and secondary comorbidities, such as depression and generalized anxiety.
Conclusions: It is necessary to assess the period of social anxiety disorders first symptom onset, as well as the risks for alcohol use in order to establish corrective intervention guidelines, especially for socially anxious students.
KEYWORDS Phobic disorders; Adolescent; Behavior; Ethanol; Risk factors
Abstract
Objective: To identify the risk factors related to the association between social anxiety disorder and alcohol use in adolescents.
Source of data: The PICO research strategy was used to perform a systematic review in Medline, LILACS, Pubmed, IBECS and Cochrane Library databases. DeCS/MeSH: Phobic Disorders, Adolescent, Behavior, Ethanol, Risk Factors, and the Boolean operator “AND” were used. Inclusion criteria were: cross-sectional, prospective/retrospective cohort, and case-control studies, carried out in adolescents (10 to 19 years), original articles on social anxiety disorder and alcohol use published between 2010 and 2015. Studies that did not report the terms “anxiety disorder” and “alcohol use” in the title and abstract were excluded.
Synthesis of data: 409 articles were retrieved; after the exclusion of 277 repeated articles, the following were eligible: 94 in MEDLINE, 68 in Pubmed, 12 in IBCS, and three in LILACS. Titles and abstracts were independently read by two examiners, which resulted in the selection of eight articles for the analysis. Risk factors associated to the two disorders were female gender, age, peer approval and affective problems for alcohol use, confrontation situations and/or compliance reasons, frequency of alcohol use, and secondary comorbidities, such as depression and generalized anxiety.
Conclusions: It is necessary to assess the period of social anxiety disorders first symptom onset, as well as the risks for alcohol use in order to establish corrective intervention guidelines, especially for socially anxious students.
KEYWORDS Phobic disorders; Adolescent; Behavior; Ethanol; Risk factors
Introduction
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a condition that starts in childhood/adolescence and is characterized by excessive fear or intense anxiety when the individual is faced with social exposure situations in public or meeting new people. It is estimated that between 5% and 13% of the population have this problem. It is considered as a chronic pathology, capable of incapacitating the individual and promoting the development of high rates of psychiatric comorbidities, such as depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and agoraphobia, being the most common anxiety disorder and the third most frequent psychiatric disorder.1-4
These individuals have difficulties in interpersonal relationships (family and social interactions), low self-esteem, low school performance, school dropout, and impairment in memory, perception, and thinking processes. It is noteworthy that SAD usually precedes abuse and dependence of alcohol and other illicit substances, which aggravates symptoms.5
Considered a public health problem, alcohol experimentation typically begins in adolescence, between the ages of 12 and 15 years, regardless of social context; individuals with early onset of SAD are at risk for developing depression or alcoholism.2,6,7 This diagnosis occurs shortly before or concurrently with the onset of substance use, which suggests an association between these two health problems and that, even in the face of this evidence, this type of disorder in adolescence has shown a conflicting association with the use of alcohol.
The present systematic review aimed to identify the risk factors related to the association between SAD and alcohol use among adolescents.
Method
A systematic review of the literature was carried out based on a search in the Medical Literature Analyses and Retrieval Online (Medline), Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences (LILACS), PubMed, Indice Bibliográfico Español de Ciencias de la Salud (IBECS), and the Cochrane Library databases.
For each research portal, a specific strategy was developed for crossing Descriptors in Health Sciences (DeCS, a Brazilian database of medical keywords) or Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). The keywords used for the study selection were: Phobic Disorders, Adolescents, Behavior, Ethanol, Risk Factors, and the corresponding terms in Portuguese. The Boolean operator “AND” was used to combine keywords and terms for searches. The selection was limited to studies published in Portuguese, English, or Spanish between 2010 and 2015.
After the articles were identified, eligibility, selection, and exclusion criteria were applied. Original articles that had alcohol use as a risk factor for SADs were considered eligible. The Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, Study Design (PICO) research strategy was used to construct the research question, in order to carry out the search for clinical evidence of the association between social phobia and alcohol use.8,9 The following were selected: cross-sectional, prospective/retrospective, and case–control studies, carried out in humans aged 10–19 years10; original studies; with alcoholism as a risk factor for phobic disorders. Studies that did not mention alcoholism and phobic disorders in the article title were excluded, as well as those with a population of young adults aged 20–24 years.
Article selection was carried out in three steps, following the Transparent Reporting of Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method.11 In the first step, two independent researchers read the titles without knowledge of the authors and the journal where they were published. After the exclusion of the repeated articles, the second step began, in which the abstracts of the selected studies were read and, likewise, those that did not meet the inclusion criteria were excluded. Disagreements were resolved by consensus. In the third step, all studies not excluded in the previous steps were read in full to select those that would be included in this review (Fig. 1).
Flowchart representing the selection steps of articles about social anxiety disorder and alcohol abuse in adolescents.
Results
After exclusion of the repeated articles, 277 studies were eligible: 94 in MEDLINE, 68 in Pubmed, 12 in IBCS, and three in LILACS. The titles and abstracts were independently read by two examiners, totaling eight articles for analysis in this review.
Table 1 shows the characteristics of the eight studies and the type of protocols used; one study was carried out in Finland and seven in the United States. A total of 4579 adolescents, aged 10–19 years, who had symptoms of SAD and who consumed alcohol were investigated. In 62.5% of the studies, the female gender predominated, accounting for 54% of the total sample.
The association between social anxiety symptoms and alcohol use was confirmed in six studies, two of which were carried out in a group of adolescents with mean age between 10 and 11 years, whereas the others evaluated adolescents older than 15 years. The risk factors attributed by the studies for this association were female gender, peer acceptance, and affective problems for alcohol use, as well as the presence of secondary comorbidities, such as depression, generalized anxiety, agoraphobia, separation anxiety, and obsessive–compulsive disorder. Other factors such as cultural aspects, frequency of alcohol use, and frequency of intoxication investigated by the studies did not appear to be related to this association (Table 2).
Summary of studies and risk factors associated with social anxiety disorder and alcohol use in adolescents.
Discussion
The findings show that the evaluated association is still unclear, due to the small number of studies retrieved; however, 75% of the studies showed positive evidence between the association of SAD and alcohol use.
Contextualization of study location
This review identified a predominance of studies carried out in developed countries, primarily in the United States, which may be related to greater epidemiological surveillance in mental health for children and adolescents.
It is important to remember that approximately one in five adolescents in that country suffer from a mental disorder severe enough to have an impact on their activities of daily living, and these are relevant data for the increase in the investigations.12
In Brazil, population-based studies have shown that the onset of anxiety disorders occurs at the mean age of 13 years and the use of alcohol between 12 and 15 years, while substance abuse begins later, at the age of 24 years. This may be an indication that the resources available for the treatment of mental disorders in children and adolescents might be deficient, consequently increasing the rates of comorbidity in early adult life.13,14 This review did not retrieve any Brazilian publication that could clarify the national reality about the association between SAD and alcohol use.
These data are important to emphasize the need to diagnose and follow-up adolescents who are predisposed to developing mental disorders and to initially establish preventive actions in schools and healthcare services, thus reducing the long-term associated burden on the individual, family, and community.
SAD and alcohol use
Given that SAD is one of the most prevalent psychiatric conditions in the world's population, second only to depression,6 and that its development precedes the onset of alcohol use disorders, it is important to carry out alcohol intervention activities,15 as young individuals with SAD are five times more likely to develop alcohol dependence than those without the disorder.14,16-20
Studies that failed to show a significant association between SAD and alcohol use in adolescents,15,21 still indicated the possibility of reaching different results when cultural differences were observed, such as free access to alcohol by adolescents. Another observed risk was the development of this association with depression, which may occur in late adolescence or take more than two years to develop.
It is worth emphasizing the importance of recognizing and treating anxiety disorders in childhood, especially among girls, aiming to help them prevent the development of substance use disorders and secondary comorbidities.22
According to the Differential Diagnostic Guidelines for Social Anxiety Disorder, the age of SAD onset tends to occur earlier and the distribution between the genders is more homogeneous.3 When analyzing gender in association with alcohol consumption among Brazilian adolescents in the National School Health Survey (PeNSE 2012), a higher prevalence of the female gender (51.7%; 95%CI: 50.8–52.6) was observed.23 When assessing the influence of gender on the association between illicit substance use and social anxiety, it was observed that women with higher levels of social anxiety had a higher number of friends who use drugs and alcohol.24
However, there are differences between the patterns observed in adolescents and the results of studies with adults, i.e., the association between anxiety disorders and substance use can change from adolescence to adulthood.22 What is initially used as an anxiety coping tool, attenuating inhibition and making them feel safe while alleviating the fear in social situations throughout life, can lead to embarrassing situations and dependence, as well as the persistence of phobic symptoms.25
In the study carried out at schools, libraries, and adolescent clubs in the Washington, DC, United States metropolitan area, the rates of alcohol use were relatively low; however, the results indicated that young individuals were more likely to have problems with alcohol consumption over time.26
In the study that investigated social anxiety, generalized anxiety, and substance use (cigarettes and alcohol) in the early adolescence phase, it was observed that for the female gender, social anxiety is a risk factor when alcohol use approval use by peers is high (high levels of peer approval and high levels of social anxiety were associated with a high likelihood of substance use), whereas for generalized anxiety, it is considered a risk factor when the use by peers is low.27
However, gender was not significantly associated with social anxiety and alcohol use, emphasizing age, frequency of alcohol use, and affective problems.28 Nevertheless, this association was associated with affective problems, as well as reasons for survival and coping, so that young individuals who had elevated symptoms of the disorder reported increased motivation to drink associated with coping purposes. This was also demonstrated in the three models used to assess the groups of people with social anxiety who used alcohol in situations of confrontation and/or compliance reasons.29
Adolescents with elevated social anxiety symptoms consume less alcohol, but show a higher association when it is related with coping endorsement and compliance motives.30
Future perspectives
The limitations of the analyzed studies are based on sample size; on the short period of follow-up of the adolescents; on the fact that, as it was not possible to observe the students' behavior during the transition period from elementary to high school,15,26,28 the results cannot be generalized for all phases of adolescence or for all regions (rural and urban areas), since each phase has different characteristics and behaviors regarding the decision-making for use of alcohol according to the place of residence27; and on the use of a combination of variables regarding the use of alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, and other substances, which has implications for their association with anxiety, as each substance has unique properties and distinct physiological effects.21,22,27
Regarding future investigations, it is necessary to assess the individuals at the initial, middle, and late adolescence phases, as well as to expand racial and ethnic groups; to use both the descriptive analysis (perceptions of the drinking behavior) and the analysis of precautionary norms (approval/disapproval of the drinking behavior); to evaluate the treatment and its effects on the adolescent; and to assess the coping reasons for drinking and problematic use of alcohol, with the ultimate goal of developing prevention programs aimed at young individuals at risk.
Limitations
The present systematic review study had as limitations: (a) non-use of the Web of Science and Pschynfo scientific databases, with the latter being the database specialized in behavioral and social science research; (b) scarcity of studies published in Portuguese, English, or Spanish; and (c) the small number of articles included in the analysis.
Despite the limitations, this review becomes relevant, as it allowed the identification and understanding of the main risk factors associated with SAD and alcohol use in adolescents, in addition to broadening the knowledge about the subject.
Conclusions
The association between SAD and alcohol use in adolescents appears to be unclear, due to the few identified studies, the methodological heterogeneity, and their regionalization. Nevertheless, this review raised interesting evidence on the existence of this association and identified the main risk factors related to the association between SAD and alcohol use among adolescents, such as female gender, peer acceptance, and affective problems regarding alcohol use, as well as the presence of secondary comorbidities, such as depression and anxiety disorders. Therefore, studies with representative samples, with an increase in the racial and ethnic groups and that contemplate the initial, middle, and late phases of adolescence are still necessary.
Some authors also suggest that prospective studies be carried out to observe students' behavior during the transition period from elementary to high school, as well as evaluate the onset period of the first symptoms of SAD and the risks for alcohol use; assess the reasons for alcohol use; evaluate treatment and its effects on adolescents; and to implement corrective intervention guidelines for alcohol use among socially anxious students.
References
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Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
Sep-Oct 2017
History
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Received
20 Oct 2016 -
Accepted
9 Jan 2017