An Analysis of Research Trends in the Use and Abuse of Alcohol by Adolescents: Papers Published in Korean Academic Journals

The purpose of this study was to analyze trends of alcohol use and abuse researches among adolescents by analyzing journal articles in Korean. To do this, 190 papers published until 2017 were extracted and analyzed according to the content analysis procedure, focusing on the publication year, the research topics, and research methods. Results showed that the number of studies related to alcohol use and abuse among adolescents began to increase from the late 1990s and has risen since the early 2000s. ‘Relationship’ was the most frequently researched topic, accounting for 71.0%, followed by ‘Current Status’ (11.0%), ‘Prevention’ (6.6%), ‘Law and Policies’ (3.7%), ‘Characteristics’ (3.2%), ‘Review and Theory’ (2.1%), ‘Scales’ (1.6%), and ‘Intervention’ (0.5%). The research methods were quantitative (86.0%), qualitative (10.0%) and mixed (3.7%).