Understanding Binge Drinking Quitting Intention and Behaviour Using an Extended TPB

Background Binge drinking is a social problem that is highly prevalent in South Africa, particularly among the youth. The behaviour has negative consequences on the health of individuals and society. Focus of the Article This empirical study drew from the Theory of planned behaviour and decomposed the theory’s determinants of intention into two components each, to investigate intention to quit binge drinking. Social support from the Social cognitive theory was also investigated as a determinant of intention to quit. Furthermore, the study investigates the determinants quitting binge drinking behaviour. Research Hypotheses The study proposed that attitude (affective and instrumental); subjective norms (injunctive and descriptive), perceived behavioural control (self-efficacy and perceived controllability) and social support positively and significantly predict intention to quit binge drinking. Intention, perceived controllability and self-efficacy were hypothesised to predict actual behaviour of quitting binge drinking. Importance to the Social Marketing Field This study contributes theoretical knowledge through the use of an extended TPB model that focuses on the desired behaviour of quitting binge drinking and provides specific determinants that social marketers can use when designing interventions. The two-component TPB used in the study also provides social marketers distinctive and specific knowledge on which aspects from the original one component significantly influence the intention to quit. The implications are discussed from a social marketing perspective. Methods A cross-sectional, quantitative online survey was used to collect data from a convenient sample of 810 respondents. Partial Least Squares Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data including testing the hypothesis and age group–based multigroup analysis. Results Instrumental attitude, injunctive norms, descriptive norms, self-efficacy and social support were found to significantly and positively predict intention to quit binge drinking explaining 49.2% variance in intention. However, the influence of affective attitude was negative and insignificant. Intention and self-efficacy positively explained 16.2% of variance in behaviour. Recommendations for Research/Practice It is recommended that social marketers focus on instrumental attitude injunctive, descriptive norms, self-efficacy as well as social support when designing interventions to promote quitting binge drinking behaviour. Limitations The main limitation of the study is it provides a broad ranging overview which calls for more experimental efforts to be done on the ground for practitioners promoting positive behaviour change.