Factors associated with alcohol drinking behavior of cancer survivors: The Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

- A considerable number of cancer survivors continue drinking alcohol after diagnosis.
- High-risk drinkers occupy substantial proportions of persistent drinking survivors.
- Survivors with alcohol-related cancer are more likely to be a high-risk drinkers.
- More attention to abstinence should be given to alcohol-related cancer survivors.

BackgroundThis study aimed to evaluate the factors associated with drinking behavior of cancer survivors after cancer diagnosis.MethodsThe study subjects were 906 adult cancer survivors who had reportedly drunk alcohol before cancer diagnosis and participated in the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys conducted from 2007 to 2013. Among them, 360 abstained from alcohol drinking after cancer diagnosis. We categorized remaining 546 persistent drinkers into high-risk drinker (consuming ≥ 7 glasses of alcohol for men and ≥ 5 glasses of alcohol for women at one sitting at the frequency of at least once a month) or moderate drinker. We used multiple logistic regression analysis to evaluate risk factors associated with drinking behavior.ResultsThe high-risk drinkers occupied 27.1% (148 survivors) of the persistent alcohol drinking survivors. Age increase (OR = 0.96; 95% CI 0.93-0.99), female sex (OR = 0.15; 95% CI 0.08-0.28), and increase of time lapse (by 1-year) after cancer diagnosis (OR = 0.94; 95% CI 0.92-0.97) were associated with a lower risk of high-risk drinking as compared with moderate drinking. Meanwhile, ≤ 9 years of education (OR = 1.99; 95% CI 1.10-3.60), alcohol-related cancer (OR = 2.09; 95% CI 1.23-3.56), and current smoking (OR = 1.92; 95% CI 1.03-3.59) were associated with increased risk of high-risk drinking of cancer survivors.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that greater efforts for preventing high-risk drinking should be laid on the cancer survivors, with consideration of individual sociodemographic characteristics, especially when the survivors had been diagnosed with alcohol-related cancer.