What are adolescents thinking when they answer questions about alcohol?
Penelope M. Keyl, PhD, Department of Emergency Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, 1800 East Monument Street, Suite 6-100, Baltimore, MD 21205, (410)614-5226, pkeyl@jhmi.edu and Cheryl S. Alexander, PhD, Center for Adolescent Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, The Johns Hopkins University, 2007 East Monument Street, 2nd floor, Baltimore, MD 21205. Background: Researchers have mostly relied on traditional quantity-frequency measures to describe adolescent drinking. This may be problematic because it makes assumptions about the stability of drinking behavior, but adolescents often report episodes of high levels of alcohol intake followed by periods of little or no use. Methods: We used cognitive interviewing methods, the think-aloud interview and probes, to collect data on the thought processes adolescents use to answer alcohol questions. We recruited 72 adolescents, 24 each aged 12-14, 15-17, and 18-20 years, with a balance of African American and European Americans, and by ge
