Research Article Prevalence and Correlates of Binge Drinking among Young Adults Using Alcohol: A Cross-Sectional Survey Francesco Bartoli, 1 Daniele Carretta, 1 Cristina Crocamo, 1 Alessandro Schivalocchi, 1 Giulia Brambilla, 1 Massimo Clerici, 1 and Giuseppe Carrà 2 1 Department of Surgery and Translational Medicine, University of Milano Bicocca, Via Cadore 48, 20900 Monza, Italy 2 Division of Psychiatry, Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London, Charles Bell House, 67–73 Riding House Street, London W1W7EJ, UK Correspondence should be addressed to Massimo Clerici; massimo.clerici@unimib.it Received 28 February 2014; Accepted 17 June 2014; Published 30 June 2014 Academic Editor: Giovanni Martinotti Copyright © 2014 Francesco Bartoli et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. Although binge drinking prevalence and correlates among young people have been extensively studied in the USA and Northern Europe, less is known for Southern Europe countries with relatively healthier drinking cultures. Objective. We aimed at analyzing prevalence and correlates of binge drinking in a representative sample of young adults in Italy. Methods. We conducted a cross-sectional survey among alcohol-consuming young adults. We carried out univariate and multivariate analyses to assess associations between recent binge drinking and candidate variables. Results. We selected 654 subjects, with 590 (mean age: 20.65 ± 1.90) meeting inclusion criteria. Prevalence for recent binge drinking was 38.0%, signiicantly higher for females than males. Multivariate analysis showed that high alcohol expectancies, large amount of money available during the weekend, interest for parties and discos, female gender, cannabis use, inluence by peers, and electronic cigarettes smoking all were signiicantly associated with recent binge drinking, whereas living with parents appeared a signiicant protective factor. Conclusions. More than a third of young adults using alcohol are binge drinkers, and, in contrast with indings from Anglo-Saxon countries, females show higher risk as compared with males. hese data suggest the increasing importance of primary and secondary prevention programmes for binge drinking. 1. Introduction Binge drinking can be described as heavy alcohol use over a short period of time [1], and it is typically deined by a consumption of four or ive drinks in a row among women and men, respectively [2]. his dangerous pattern of alcohol consumption is highly prevalent among young adults and a public health concern in the USA [3] as well as in most of European countries [4]. Data from the 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse on 19–21-year-old US adults highlighted a weekly binge drinking prevalence of 12% and 27% among females and males, respectively [5]. At the same time, relevant research shows that there is an increase of binge drinking among young people also across Europe [6, 7]. A six European countries (Germany, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, and Scotland) cross-sectional survey on 16,551 pupils from 114 public schools showed that 27% of the sample had consumed >5 drinks in a row on at least 1 occasion in their life [8]. Pleasure, habit, increasing conidence, anxiety or stress, and social pressures have been reported as the most common reasons for alcohol drinking during adolescence and early adulthood [9]. Furthermore, the impact of binge drinking among young people has been associated with an increased risk of social and clinical consequences in the adulthood, such as illicit drug use, psychiatric morbidity, homelessness, convictions, school exclusion, lack of qualii- cations, and accidents [10–12]. Indeed, alcohol dependence in young adults is oten preceded by higher persisting rates of frequent, intense, or binge drinking [13]. Adolescents and young adults who engage in binge drinking are more likely to report other health risk behaviors [14], such as smoking cigarettes and/or cannabis [15–18]. In a sample with a modal Hindawi Publishing Corporation BioMed Research International Volume 2014, Article ID 930795, 7 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/930795