Knowledge and Use of Alcohol among Business and Professional Women.

Women and men in management and professional positions were surveyed regarding their alcohol consumption and knowledge of information about alcohol. Ninety-seven percent of the 147 females in the sample drink alcoholic beverages, with 11% rated as heavy drinkers. Single women reported higher levels of heavy drinking than did married women. Contrary to some expectations, the increase in women who drink does not appear to be accompanied by an increase in numbers of heavy drinkers. The data suggest that business and professional women may not be following the male model of heavy alcohol use. Responses to a twenty-one item Alcohol Information Questionnaire suggest that both men and women are lacking information on the drug and how it works, especially information of a more practical nature. Respondents of both genders performed poorly on questions concerning the effects of alcohol on women. There was anecdotal evidence of female participants' reluctance to acknowledge gender differences in alcohol effects. When asked to estimate the amount of alcohol they would need to reach various levels of intoxication, neither men nor women performed very well, with more people overor underestimating then correctly estimating their capacity. Women over-estimated their capacity in greater numbers than did men. Results are discussed in terms of the drinking environment of business women and future prevention and education programming. Introduction Concern has been expressed that, as they move into higher level male-dominated positions, maladaptive behaviors such as abusive drinking would increase among women (Gomberg, 1977; Kleeman & Googins, 1983; Wilsnack, 1978). Part of the concern rests with the fact that higher level business and professional positions are more likely to involve increased exposure to alcohol, both on the job and in social or social/ business situations (Johnson, 1982). In addition to increased exposure to drinking situations and new drinking norms, occupational stress and stresses specific to females in new roles are seen as potential precipitants of heavy or abusive drinking. Research into the effects of alcohol on women (e.g., Blume, 1982; Hill, 1978; Saunders et al., 1981; Smith, 1981) suggests that women cannot adopt male drinking patterns and expect similar shortand longterm effects, and that to engage in such initative behavior could be dangerous. However, if women are unaware of these differences they may not be able to make rational decisions on alcohol use both within and beyond the business setting. Further, knowledge of general information on alcohol effects is needed for safe use of the drug. Such knowledge should go beyond basic facts to include an understanding of one's capacity and an ability to predict the effects of consumption on one's own functioning. The purpose of this study was to investigate the alcohol consumption rates of women employed in managerial and professional occupations. The ,xtent of knowledge about the effects of alcohol, especially those effects specifically relevant to women, was also investigated. Finally, a method of assessing accuracy of personal predictions of alcohol effects was developed and used with this group of business men and women. Method Subjects were 147 women and 94 men employed in business and professional positions in a moderately-large midwestern city. Participation was solicited through professional organizations and participants included attorneys, administrative and purchasing managers, accountants, personnel and public administrators, advertising personnel, and business owners. The questionnaire included demographic information, an Alcohol Information Questionnaire developed for this study (appendix I), and a Quantity-Frequency (Q-F) measure of alcohol consumption originally developed by Jessor et al. (1968). Scores in the Q-F scale were converted to drinking categories (Ford & Meyer, 1978). Personal predictions of alcohol effects were obtained by asking each participant to indicate the number of drinks he/she could have in one hour before (1) feeling the effects of the alcohol, (2) becoming impaired in functioning, and (3) becoming drunk. Estimates were combined with respondents' weight, corrected for gender (Johnson, 1982) to obtain a Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) for each condition. Results Table 1 presents demographic information on the participants in this study.