SynthesisAddiction (Abingdon, England)2020
Associations between solitary drinking and increased alcohol consumption, alcohol problems, and drinking to cope motives in adolescents and young adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Addiction (Abingdon, England), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 84 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
84 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 145 citations in OpenAlex.
- Association between alexithymia and substance use: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Scandinavian journal of psychology · 2022Pooled it
- A systematic review and meta-analysis on the association between solitary drinking and alcohol problems in adults.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2021Pooled it
- The impact of empathy on drinking motives, craving, and drink orders: An experimental study.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2025Trial
- Alcohol's acute effects on emotion recognition and empathy in heavy-drinking young adults.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- The impact of alcohol consumption on implicit racial bias.Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors · 2024Trial
- Sociability, drinking motives, and alcohol use problems among young adults with and without childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2026Article
- Childhood emotional abuse and gastrointestinal symptoms among college students: a chain mediation model with physical exercise as the moderating variable and network analysis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Prevalence of illicit alcohol consumption and associated factors among adolescents in selected communities of Lusaka, Zambia.PloS one · 2026Article
- Article
- Burned aggression: the relationship between burnout and aggressive behaviour among young adults in Czechia.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Investigating the impact of COVID-19 related worries and loneliness on alcohol consumption: an ecological momentary assessment.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2025Article
- Tendency to consume alcohol among Poles in the light of coping with stress and selected socio-demographic factors during the COVID-19 pandemic.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Historical trends in young adult solitary alcohol use by age and sex from 1977 to 2022.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2025Article
- Common and uncommon risky drinking patterns in young adulthood uncovered by person-specific computational modeling.Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors · 2025Article
- Substance Use While Sexting Moderates the Effect of Sexual Identity Development on Offline and Online Sexting Consequences Among Adolescent Sexual Minority Males.Archives of sexual behavior · 2025Article
- The Effects of Alcohol in Groups of Heavy Drinking Young Adults: A Multi-Modal Investigation of Alcohol Responses in a Laboratory Social Setting.Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2025Article
- Are you feeling what I'm feeling? Momentary interactions between personal and perceived peer subjective response predict craving and continued drinking in young adults.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2025Article
- Social Drinking and Addiction: A Social-Cognitive Model for Understanding Alcohol Use Disorder Risk.Current directions in psychological science · 2025Article
- Older adult solitary drinking: associations with subjective and objective cognitive functioning.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2025Article
- Alcohol Misuse, Marital Functioning and Marital Instability: An Evidence-Based Review on Intimate Partner Violence, Marital Satisfaction and Divorce.Substance abuse and rehabilitation · 2025Review
24 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
aimsEmerging evidence suggests that solitary drinking may be an important early risk marker for alcohol use disorder. The current paper is the first meta-analysis and systematic review on adolescent and young adult solitary drinking to examine associations between solitary drinking and increased alcohol consumption, alcohol problems, and drinking to cope motives.
methodsPsychINFO, PubMed, and Google Scholar were searched using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology and a pre-registered International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) protocol (no. CRD42020143449). Data from self-report questionnaires regarding negative correlates of solitary drinking (e.g. alcohol problems) and solitary drinking motives (e.g. drinking to cope) were pooled across studies using random-effects models. Studies included adolescents (aged 12-18 years) and young adults (mean age between 18 and 30 years or samples with the majority of participants aged 30 years or younger).
resultsMeta-analytical results from 21 unique samples including 28,372 participants showed significant effects for the associations between solitary drinking and the following factors: increased alcohol consumption, r = 0.23, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.12, 0.33; drinking problems, r = 0.23, 95% CI = 0.13, 0.32; negative affect, r = 0.21, 95% CI = 0.16, 0.26; social discomfort, r = 0.17, 95% CI = 0.06, 0.27; negative reinforcement, r = 0.28, 95% CI = 0.24, 0.31; and positive reinforcement, r = 0.10, 95% CI = 0.03, 0.17. These associations were not moderated by age group (i.e. adolescent versus young adult), study quality, or differing solitary drinking definitions. Accounting for publication bias increased the effect sizes from r = 0.23 to 0.34 for alcohol consumption and from r = 0.23 to 0.30 for drinking problems, and lowered it from r = 0.10 to 0.06 and r = 0.17 to 0.11 for positive reinforcement and social discomfort, respectively.
conclusionsSolitary drinking among adolescents and young adults appears to be associated with psychosocial/alcohol problems and drinking to cope motives.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.