Social support perceived through Facebook, family and friends and alcohol consumption in adolescents

© Health and Addictions 2019. Alcohol consumption in adolescents is one of the most important public health problems in the world, it has been observed that from the early stages of growth alcohol consumption begins, however, it is not recognized as a health problem by this population at risk. The aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between social support perceived through Facebook and alcohol consumption in adolescents. Descriptive correlational design, stratified random sampling was used, sample size was 1,235 adolescents, non-parametric statistics such as Spearman`s Correlation Coefficient was obtained. Results shows that 53.2% of adolescents presented hazardous alcohol use, 23.3% dependence symptoms and 23.5% harmful alcohol use. Following correlations were found with alcohol consumption: social support perceived through Facebook (rs = .125, p < .001), social support perceived by the family (rs = -.096, p < .05) and by friends (rs = .089, p <.05). In conclusions, adolescents who present greater social support perceived through Facebook, present higher consumption of alcohol.