A 12-item version of the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-12) was constructed and applied at 1-year intervals in a non-referred cohort of 1193 adolescents in Norway aged 13-18 years. Eight percent of the girls scored beyond the chosen cut-off point of 9/10 the first time and 9% the second time. Factor analysis demonstrated 3 factors--dieting, bulimia and food preoccupation and oral control. Both the total scores on the EAT-12 and the 3 different factor scores showed a significant relationship between eating behaviour and smoking, level of alcohol consumption, alcohol intoxication, psychopathology and parental bonding.

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This article presents a nationwide study of family dissolution among cohabiting and married parents of three cohorts of Norwegian children born in 1980, 1986 and 1992 respectively. The study focuses on two main topics: the dissolution trend of consensual and marital unions, and factors affecting the dissolution rates of parental unions. The results show that children of cohabiting parents run a much higher risk of dissolution compared to children in marital unions and this risk is not diminishing as cohabitation becomes more widespread. Event history analysis shows that among important predictors of family dissolution the two most important are number of siblings and whether parents are married or not. Other important factors are mother's age upon entering the union, and the presence of older half-sisters/-brothers. The consequences for children living in consensual unions are discussed.

This study hypothesizes that parental style is related to drug use behaviour of adolescents. The data were obtained from a large prospective longitudinal research project on lifestyle and drug use in Oslo, Norway. The analyses are based on a sample of 846 adolescents, with an age span of 15-20 years. The parenting style was measured by means of a shortened version of Parenting Bonding Instrument, where the respondents assessed their perceptions of their parents' behaviour at the time they were growing up. The instrument measures two subdimensions labelled care and protection, which combine to four broad styles of parenting. Using canonical correlation analyses, it was found that the combination of a low level of caring and a high level of protection, conceptualized as `affectionless control', was associated with drug use among the adolescents. Similar patterns emerged from separate analyses of the father and the mother scales. These support the hypothesis that the parenting styles of the mother and father are related to their children's drug use.

The relationship between personality and drug use was investigated by studying patterns of sensation-seeking behaviour and drug use among adolescents. A questionnaire was distributed to a sample of 1027 Norwegian senior high school students aged 16 to 19 in the greater Oslo area. The response rate was 97%. The sensation-seeking subscores showed moderate to strong association with the use of the different drugs. A canonical correlation analysis yielded 3 significant variates: in the drug use domain the first dimension correlated with the use of legal drugs and inhalants, the second with cannabis and tranquillizers and the third with tobacco. In the sensation-seeking domain the first dimension was almost synonymous with the disinhibition scale, the second with experience-seeking, and the third correlated highly negatively with thrill-, adventure- and experience-seeking. The results support the assumption that a strong link exists between sensation seeking and drug use. They further show the importance of taking different subdimensions of the sensation-seeking trait into account for prevention and treatment of drug use and abuse.