The longitudinal pattern of alcohol-related injury in a college population: emergency department data compared to self-reported data.

BACKGROUND: Self-report survey is the most common method of obtaining information from college students on substance use and its consequences. However, the validity and reliability of self-report data, especially in relationship to harmful substance use, is frequently called into question.

OBJECTIVES: To establish the convergent validity of self-reported alcohol-related injury data and data from a university-affiliated hospital Emergency Department (ED) across a seven year period. (2) To examine the trend lines for relative risk of alcohol-related injury.

METHODS: Two existing data sets at a major public university are compared: records of 1,253 ED admissions for alcohol-related reasons and 13,518 survey responses. Convergent validity is evaluated with the Pearson correlation coefficients of the two data sets for 2001/2002 through 2007/2008. Longitudinal trends for each data set are evaluated by change in relative risk.

RESULTS: Over the seven years, 51% of ED visits for alcohol-related reasons were due to injury, and 14% of survey respondents who drank alcohol reported alcohol-related injury. Both decreased significantly over the years: from 62% to 45% for ED reports and from 24% to 9% for self reports. ED visits for alcohol-related injury and self-reported alcohol-related injury are highly correlated: r = .67, 45% shared variance.

CONCLUSIONS: The comparison establishes convergent validity for the self-report data and decreased rates of alcohol-related injury.

SCIENTIFIC SIGNIFICANCE: These findings support the validity in college populations of self-report data about negative consequences associated with drinking alcohol.