ArticleAddiction (Abingdon, England)2022
Trajectories of alcohol misuse among the UK Armed Forces over a 12-year period.
Article in Addiction (Abingdon, England), 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Adverse mental health outcomes and alcohol misuse among UK Armed Forces personnel: fourth phase of a 20-year cohort study of military personnel who served during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.Occupational and environmental medicine · 2026Article
- Reducing alcohol consumption in UK armed forces veterans: Feasibility of using personalized push notifications with AI.PLOS digital health · 2026Article
- Digital Therapeutic Intervention for Women in the UK Armed Forces Who Consume Alcohol at a Hazardous or Harmful Level: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR research protocols · 2023Article
- Trajectories of alcohol misuse among the UK Armed Forces over a 12-year period.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimTo identify the main trajectories of alcohol misuse among UK military personnel from 12 years after the start of the Iraq war (2003) and the factors associated with each trajectory.
designLongitudinal cohort study with three phases of data collection (2004-06, 2007-09 and 2014-16).
settingUnited Kingdom.
participantsServing and ex-serving personnel of the UK Armed Forces (n = 7111) participating at Phase 1 and at least one follow-up phase of the King's Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR) cohort study. MEASUREMENTS: Trajectories of alcohol misuse were derived from scores using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT-10) over three data collection phases. Demographic and military characteristics were collected and, among the key covariates, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was measured using the PTSD checklist (PCL-C) and childhood interpersonal stress and violence was measured using items from the Adverse Childhood Experiences questionnaire.
findingsFive trajectories of alcohol misuse were identified, including 'no misuse' (n = 2249, 31.6%) and 'hazardous' (n = 3398, 47.8%), 'harmful' (n = 832, 11.7%), 'severe-to-hazardous' (n = 258, 5.3%) and 'severe' (n = 374, 3.6%) drinking. Substantial changes were evident only among severe drinkers, where more than half reduced over the study period. The factors most strongly associated with belonging to harmful/severe drinking classes were young age, male gender and childhood adversities and antisocial behaviour. Severe drinkers at Phase 1 were more likely to report probable PTSD and shorter military careers and were less likely to serve as Officers. Persistent severe drinkers were less likely to serve in the RAF compared to the Army and were more likely to be reserves. Not misusing alcohol was also associated with reserve status and having left service.
conclusionsIn a cohort of approximately 7000 UK military personnel, trajectories of alcohol misuse appeared stable between 2004 and 2016. More than half of severe drinkers made substantial improvements over the period, but 68% of the cohort continued to drink hazardously or harmfully. Lack of change for the majority of the sample signals the need for strategies to address alcohol misuse and its cultural and psychosocial drivers.
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