2021, Vol. 3, Issue 2, Part A

Alcohol consumption is major public health concerns and is prevalent in the society. Globally, around one in seven adults are daily smokers and one in five adults consumes alcohol excessively at least once a month. Alcohol and drug abuse has been showing an increasing trend in India. Global states report on alcohol reported that annual prevalence of drinking among adult males in India is 21.4%. Report revealed that among the total drug uses alcohol (43%) was the most commonly used drug. The alcohol consumption have a greater impact on the disease burden than either behaviour alone and beyond health consequences, bring significant social and economic losses to public health, such as ill-health related costs.

Psychological factors, such as stress and depression, have been identified for behaviour change interventions for smoking cessation and to reduce alcohol consumption. Self-esteem is another potentially important psychological factor in targeting addictive behaviours, though it has not been studied extensively in terms of its associations with alcohol consumption.

Global self-esteem is defined as an interpretation of one’s self-worth and the beliefs and perceptions about oneself in a favourable or unfavourable way. It has been suggested as an important motivational factor to drive behaviour, as people with high self-esteem are likely to feel good about themselves and engage in behaviours that protect or improve their health and wellbeing, whereas low self-esteem has been shown to be positively associated with substance use.