A Qualitative Study of Binge Drinking Among Female University Students at an Australian University

Abstract

Binge drinking is a prevalent practice among Australian university students. According to the health professionals, binge drinking refers to hazardous drinking. While there are many medical references to binge drinking, most medical models refer to binge as consuming an arbitrary number of drinks in a single session. This paper examines Wechsler's definition of 'binge' drinking, which is, consuming more than five drinks for a man and more than four drinks for a woman in a single sitting. This definition is also known as the '5/4' measurement. Although the '5/4' measurement informed this study, this paper did not utilise this measurement to investigate the perilous effects of binge drinking, but rather the thesis adopted an interpretive approach to examine how students comprehended the phenomenon of binge drinking. A total of twenty female university students from the University of New England participated in face-to-face interviews to describe their drinking behaviours and perception of binge drinking. The study found that binge drinking is a prevalent activity in student cultures, informing the experience of being a student. However, understandings of 'binge drinking' vary widely, with most participants defining the activity qualitatively as a 'state of behaviour', rather than quantitatively. In this way, they did not apply medicalised understandings of binge drinking to describe this activity. Moreover, most students did not regard themselves as binge drinkers.