Table 3.
Perceptions about level of alcohol consumption and intoxication: volunteer firefighters
| Drinking level |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gender | Total | Abstinent | Moderate | Heavy | p-values† | |
| Attitudes about level of consumption (mean (SD)) | ||||||
| Acceptable highest numbers of drinking days per month | Male Female |
9.91 (8.87) 9.17 (7.86) |
5.28 (6.78)a 6.07 (6.42) |
12.6 (9.49)b 13.1 (8.76) |
10.6 (8.34)b 9.36 (7.76) |
0.001 0.09 |
| Acceptable maximum numbers of drink on one occasion | Male Female |
2.72 (1.35) 2.33 (1.23) |
2.0 (1.14)a 2.0 (1.36) |
2.49 (0.86)a 2.6 (1.07) |
3.55 (1.52)b 2.41 (1.22) |
<0.001 0.46 |
| Predicted percentage of department who are abstinent and who binge drink (mean (SD)) | ||||||
| Percentage who are abstinent | Male | 23.1 (20.8) | 23.2 (22.7) | 22.8 (21.9) | 23.2 (18.2) | 0.995 |
| Female | 15.8 (16.2) | 22.6 (22.6) | 10.7 (7.2) | 13.8 (13.2) | 0.152 | |
| Percentage who binge drink | Male | 45.1 (26.1) | 47.6 (28.1)ab | 37.6 (26.1)a | 51.1 (23.1)b | 0.047 |
| Female | 46.6 (25.7) | 50.1 (30.3) | 44.2 (24.7) | 45.4 (23.9) | 0.829 | |
| Attitudes about intoxication (% for column) | ||||||
| Intoxication not ever acceptable | Male Female |
52.1 50.0 |
78.1 64.3 |
52.3 50.0 |
31.7 40.9 |
<0.001‡ 0.39 |
| Intoxication acceptable if doesn't interfere with responsibilities | Male Female |
47.0 50.0 |
21.9 35.7 |
47.7 50.0 |
65.9 59.1 |
|
| Intoxication acceptable even if interferes with responsibilities | Male Female |
0.9 0 |
0 0 |
0 0 |
2.4 0 |
|
†
Differences between drinking categories. Note: Cells with different superscripts denote significantly different (p < 0.05, Tukey HSD) means within gender among row drinking categories. Percentages may not add to 100 due to rounding.
‡
Chi-square tests within gender for whether firefighters from different drinking levels significantly differ in the proportion who think intoxication is never acceptable.